New Reuters chair FitzGerald to earn £500,000

By Gautam Malkani, Media Correspondent
Outgoing Unilever chairman Niall FitzGerald will be one of the highest-salaried non-executive chairmen in the FTSE 100 when he takes over at Reuters.
Mr FitzGerald will be paid £500,000 a year when he steps into his new role in October, nearly double the £278,000 paid to Sir Christopher Hogg, his predecessor. The salary was disclosed
in Reuters' annual report which also revealed that the bonus for Tom Glocer, chief executive. row £189,000 last year, taking his package to £1.9m. He was also awarded share options that du not vest until 2008 but would be worth about £10m if cashed at today's share price.
Reuters pointed out the the share option scheme was a long-term incentive scheme, part of an executive pay structure devised after exhaustive consul
tation with shareholders and corporate governance groups. The scheme's performance targets meant that for Mr Gloser to receive any payment in 2008 the company had to have outperformed half the constituents of the FTSE 100 index. It had to be in the top quartile for him to receive all of the award.
The UK news and information group is is emerging from the most challenging period in its history, with a £440m cost-cutting
programme in which 3,000 jobs are being axed over three years. Market capitalisation has risen from £1bn to £5.3bn over the past year. Yesterday, the shares closed 22p up at 381p.
Reuters said Mr FitzGerald's remuneration would be limited to the £5()D,000 salary, whereas Sir Christopher was also paid benefits and pension entitlements and participated in share option schemes. The group added that the chairman's salary had not
been reviewed since 2000.
In addition, Reuters said the increased salary reflected the fact that Mr FitzGerald was allowed to take on only one chairmanship following, the Higgs corporate governance report.
Other relatively highly paid chairmen include Peter Middleton at Barclays, who is on £528,000; Lord Maclaurin at Vodafone, who gets £463,000; and Royal Bank of Scotland's George Mathewson, who is on £468,000.