Bonuses push six finance directors' salaries past ?1m

Huge annual bonuses propelled six finance directors of FTSE 100 companies into the £1m a year bracket last year, according to a new survey.

It found that Ken Hydon, finance director at Vodafone, is the highest paid money man working for a UK-listed company. He pocketed more than £3m from the mobile phones company last year - including £2.4m in bonus payments.

The survey also shows that the average pay for a finance director at a FTSE 100 company - excluding Mr Hydon's heavyweight pay package - climbed by more than £70,000 last year, to £531,593. Overall, in the past year, basic salaries rose 9% and their bonuses powered ahead by 55%.

In reality the gains made by these executives are likely to have been much larger. The survey, carried out by Finance Director magazine, excludes any profits made from share options, long-term incentive schemes, golden handshakes or payments made into pension schemes.

Mr Hydon's bonus - including a short-term incentive payment of £426,000 - was largely a result of Vodafone's successful bid for Mannesman of Germany. The payout pushed Mr Hydon, 56, ahead of Amvescap's Robert McCullough, who had been the UK's best paid finance chief for three years.

Mr McCullough is now in second place, but four others took home more than £1m last year. Nicholas MacAndrew of Schroders, one of the least well paid in terms of salary, received a bonus six times his basic pay.

At the other end of the scale - and despite a 71% increase in his remuneration last year - the lowest paid finance director of a FTSE 100 firm was Gordon Hurst of outsourcing company Capita Group, with £213,283. He received basic pay of £129,397, a bonus of £82,500 and benefits in kind valued at just £1,386.

The pay league's biggest loser was Kathleen O'Donovan of Invensys. The engineering group's dire finances left her without a bonus and she was forced to muddle along on 28% less remuneration, with just her basic pay of £424,000 and £31,000 of perks.

The survey found that the youngest finance directors of FTSE 100 firms - both aged 36 - are Paul Harrison of the Sage software group and Ian Livingston of Dixons. Oldest is John Weston Smith, 69, of British Land.