Standard Life's David Nish gets £5m

David Nish, Standard Life's chief executive, took home £5m last year, an amount of money likely to irritate the insurer's army of small shareholders and keep the hot issue of executive pay in the spotlight.

The City generally thinks Mr Nish has done well leading Standard, with a strategy to be "reassuringly dull", to focus on doing business in the UK and to post decent dividend payments.

However, investors might still raise their eyebrows at his pay for 2012, which includes £2.75m under the company's long-term incentive scheme. That amount saw his total package almost double from the £2.6m he received for 2011. On top of the incentive scheme came a bonus of £1.2m, pension payments of £232,000 and other benefits totalling £18,000.

Keith Skeoch, the head of the insurer's fund management arm, enjoyed long-term incentive payments of £2.27m, taking his total pay package to £2.6m.

The finance director, Jackie Hunt, took home £2.5m after an incentive deal worth £1.1m.

Crawford Gillies, the chairman of the remuneration committee, said in the report: "We will continue to consult with investors during 2013 with a view to putting a new incentive arrangement to shareholders for approval in 2014."