Pym to earn £2.25m as chief executive at bank

Richard Pym, the former head of Alliance & Leicester who was yesterday confirmed as the new chief executive of Bradford & Bingley, is to be paid £2.25m by next summer as he attempts to bring the beleaguered bank back on track.

B&B revealed his basic salary will be £750,000 per year with a guaranteed £750,000 bonus and the same value in B&B shares by next July. He will also be handed a large share options package.

Mr Pym, who left A&L in July 2007 after 15 years, is locked into a contract at B&B for a minimum of two years. He must also provide a full 12 months notice should he wish to leave after that.

B&B chairman, Rod Kent, who has been running the bank since Steven Crawshaw stepped down in June complaining from heart problems, said yesterday: "It has been a key priority for the board to find a new chief executive, and we believe that Richard Pym is ideal for the role."

Mike Trippitt, of Oriel Securities, said Pym was generally well regarded and "seen as having played a good hand with the cards he'd been dealt at Alliance & Leicester". He continued: "We see his appointment as good for restructuring B&B and good for negotiating at the right time an orderly exit for B&B."

Mr Pym, who said in 2004 that buy-to-let mortgage specialists could be heading for disaster, as well as the danger of self-certification mortgages, had agreed to take over as chief executive of the troubled Northern Rock earlier this years, if private equity group JC Flowers had gone ahead and bought the bank.