Aviva doubles chief executive Mark Wilson’s pay packet to £5.6m in 2015 after Friends Life acquisition
Insurance giant Aviva has doubled the pay of its chief executive Mark Wilson to £5.6m in 2015, up from £2.6m in 2014 following the acquisition on rival Friends Life.
The company posted a 20 per cent rise in operating profit for 2015, along with a 15 per cent dividend hike to 20.8p.
Ballooning executive pay packets have been a cause of friction between the public, shareholders and company management over recent months.
Earlier this month Centrica, Domino's Pizza, Genel, and Intu tried to smuggle the news of their chief executive pay cheques out undercover of Budget day to minimise press attention.
Read more: Executive pay is broken: How to reform the system to reward success and restore public trust
Wilson's pay packet was revealed in the firms annual report, along with a bonus of £1.78m pounds, or 182 per cent of his basic salary, due to "strong financial performance".
The maximum Wilson could receive is 200 per cent of his basic salary.
Wilson, who joined the company in 2013, took home £2.6m from a long-term incentive plan, based on three-year performance to the end of 2015, though didn't receive anything from the scheme last year.
Aviva has recently been working to overhaul its business, with Wilson claiming " fix phase of [Aviva's] transformation" is now complete.
Aviva's £5.6bn purchase of Friends Life went through in April last year.