Sainsbury’s boss Simon Roberts and M&S co-chief executives Stuart Machin and Katie Bickerstaffe received salaries of almost £5m over the last year, as the UK faces an ongoing cost-of-living crisis.
Both supermarkets released their annual reports this week, showing that Sainsbury’s chief executive pocketed £4.95m in pay last year. The paycheck included £3.96m in bonuses on top of a £899,000 year salary and other benefits – up 37% from the £3.6m pay packet the year prior.
Meanwhile, M&S co-CEO’s Stuart Machin and Katie Bickerstaffe were paid £4.8m in total during their first year as heads of the department store retailer, the group’s annual report showed.
Machin received a fixed pay of £749,000 and £1.78m in performance related pay last year, totaling £2.5m. While Bickerstaffe took home £673,000, reflective of her four day working pattern, and £1.55m in performance related pay – equaling £2.2m.
The pair, who both succeeded Steve Rowe at the end of May last year, were awarded a 3% salary increase for the current year due to come into effect from 1 July.
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Sainsbury’s invested £205m in colleague pay and benefits late last year, to help support staff with rising cost of living pressures.
Additionally, the retailer posted a 62% drop in its pre-tax profit to £327m this year, after revealing it had spent more than £560m on “keeping our prices low over the last two years”.
It comes as M&S posted a full-year sales growth last month, where both clothing and food helped profits to beat expectations despite soaring inflation.
Pre-tax profits for the upmarket retailer also surged 23% on a statutory basis thanks to a 9.9% jump in group sales.
