RSA Insurance Group chief executive Stephen Hester takes home £2.5m as key management bonuses grow 66 per cent
The chief executive of RSA Group raked in £2.5m in 2015, up from £2.2m he brought in the previous year after joining the insurance heavyweight in February 2014.
Stephen Hester took home a bonus of £1.2m, 76.5 per cent of the maximum, after the group reported a pre-tax profit up 17 per cent at £323m in 2015. Operating profits were also strong at £523m, up 43 per cent compared with £365m in 2014.
The salaries, bonuses and share-based awards for key management personnel – including the group executive committee, executive and non-executive directors all saw their salaries – all grew in 2015. RSA paid out £9m in salaries, up from £7m in 2014, bonuses of £5m, up 66 per cent from £3m the previous year, and doubled the amount of share-based awards from £1m to £2m.
Hester's bonus, on top of his £950,000 salary, was an increase from his 2014 bonus of £939,000. His baseline salary will rise by two per cent in April this year.
The former chief executive of RBS has held onto his role at RSA despite facing fallout from insurer Zurich mulling an offer for the company last year. Hester brought with him the promise of doing what he did at RBS – turning the business around, and many speculated that if RSA was bought out, he would be leaving before finishing what he'd started. The Zurich deal later collapsed.