Morrisons chief executive bags £1.3m share award

Dalton Philips, who joined the grocer Morrisons as chief executive this week, has been awarded shares worth £1.3m to compensate him for payouts owed to him by his previous employer.

However, his remuneration will be substantially below the £14.8m that his predecessor Marc Bolland could earn in his first year at Marks & Spencer, although more than half of this is for awards he forfeited at the supermarket by joining the high street giant.

In the first tranche, the Irishman Mr Philips has been awarded 319,401 shares in the grocer, worth £942,233 at yesterday's closing price of 295p, although he has sold 131,218 shares to satisfy income tax and national insurance liabilities.

Mr Philips, who was most recently the chief operating officer at the Canadian retailer Loblaw, has also been given a second award of 120,965 shares, worth £356,847.

However, this latter tranche will vest in March 2012, unless Mr Philips resigns or his contract is terminated prior to that day.

Morrisons yesterday said it would detail the remuneration of Mr Philips in its annual report at the end of April. Mr Bolland received a total payout of £1.7m, including a basic salary of £850,000, at the UK's fourth biggest grocer in the year to February 2009. Mr Bolland joins M&S on 1 May. Before joining Loblaw, Canada's biggest grocer, Mr Philips held senior positions at the Irish department store Brown Thomas and the world's biggest retailer, Wal-Mart.

He held a range of positions at Wal-Mart's international division between 1998 and 2005, rising to chief operating officer in Germany before it exited the country. For the year to 31 January, Morrisons delivered a 21 per cent jump in underlying profits to £767m.