The boss of scandal-hit train firm Avanti's parent company has been awarded a £1m share bonus while passengers suffer chaos on the railways and strikes continue, it's been revealed.
Travellers on the West Coast main line battled a stripped-back timetable this week - and Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, said he would ask the new Prime Minister to strip Avanti West Coast of its contract if it doesn't produce an acceptable plan to improve their service.
The rail company last week announced that from Sunday it was cutting the number of trains between London Euston and Manchester from one every 20 minutes to one an hour “until further notice." One passenger locked inside a railway station due to a late arrival also had to scale a spiked fence at Oxenholme to get out - one of dozens trapped.
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Yet FirstGroup chief executive Graham Sutherland was given 972,590 shares on Thursday under the firm’s long-term incentive plan, reports The Mirror. He will be able to cash in the bonus after five years, “subject to satisfaction of performance conditions and continued employment”.
The share price for FirstGroup, which owns 70% of Avanti, was £1.10 today - suggesting the haul could be worth just over £1m if the value holds up. Separately Mr Sutherland bought 100,000 shares for £115,000 on Wednesday. Chief Financial Officer Ryan Mangold was also awarded 1,003,226 shares under two long-term bonus plans, which take three to five years to cash in subject to conditions.
In response Mr Burnham told the Mirror: “If these bosses had any decency they would read the room and hand these bonuses back. Passengers who have been forced to stand on packed services or left behind on platforms will be furious at these payments.
“It is nothing short of a disgrace and no clearer example of Tory Britain.”
Mr Sutherland only joined FirstGroup in May from telecoms firm KCOM Group. Since then Avanti West Coast has become embroiled in a row with drivers it accuses of "unofficial strike action”.
The firm has slashed trains between London and Manchester to one an hour and is only releasing tickets a few days before travel after many drivers pulled out of working on Sundays.
Drivers' union Aslef insists the firm’s claims are "disingenuous" and it failed to employ enough staff. Mr Burnham added Avanti had “run the service down” by failing to recruit and train enough drivers and “destroyed the goodwill that’s there”.
Avanti West Coast had a cancellations score of 16.2% between June 26 and July 23 - the most for the West Coast franchise since records began in 2014. Yet Avanti West Coast received more than £17m of taxpayer's money in performance and management fees in 2020/21. That included £943,000 for “customer experience” and the same amount for “acting as a good efficient operator”, official figures show.
Avanti, the other 30% of which is owned by Italy's state-owned operator Trenitalia, was handed the funds after the Government took over some risks of franchises to keep services running during Covid.
FirstGroup said performance-related pay was in line with market practice for large firms, and shares paid under the plan take five years to cash in - three years to ‘vest’ plus an extra two-year period.
They could end up being worth nothing if Mr Sutherland were to fail to meet the firm’s performance targets. A FirstGroup spokeswoman said: “In line with our shareholder-approved policy, the Remuneration Committee fully considers the performance of the whole Group over the year alongside the experience of shareholders and our wider stakeholders.
“Shares awarded to the CEO are conditional upon the business meeting a range of financial and non-financial targets, including sustainability targets.”
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