Mark Hartigan had his bonus for 2021, members of LV= may feel, when he got to keep his job as chief executive despite overseeing the shambles of the failed £530m sale of the mutual insurer to US private equity firm Bain Capital. That misadventure, remember, ended last December in humiliating fashion: the board, despite throwing the kitchen sink at its proposal, couldn’t get enough members to vote for it.
A rapid clear-out of directors followed, with chairman Alan Cook heading for the exit, but Hartigan somehow escaped the cull. Now he’s popped up with a £511,000 bonus for his efforts in 2021. The award wasn’t a maximum jackpot (he slipped up on employee engagement, for example) but two-thirds ain’t bad after a year like the one LV+ had.
