Luxury pay deal for Burberry's Bravo

Rose Marie Bravo, the woman credited with turning round the luxury goods retailer Burberry, is to win a shares and options package worth significantly more than £10m when the company floats next month.

Details of her bumper incentive deal will be revealed this morning, alongside the price range for the share offer to institutional investors. GUS, Burberry's parent company, is selling 25 per cent of the business.

Ms Bravo will be granted a small slug of Burberry equity and share options. The prospectus will also reveal she has an annual salary of about £1m.

She has earned £5m since joining the company five years ago after being tempted to GUS from Saks Fifth Avenue, the luxury department store. When she arrived in 1997 Burberry was valued by analysts at less than £200m.

The brand has been transformed, with its familiar check now sported on a wide range of clothing, bags and other accessories, and worn by trendsetters such as Madonna and Victoria Beckham.

The company will also unveil today the appointment of three new non-executive directors, including the representatives of GUS, which is retaining a 75 per cent stake.

The partial flotation is expected to value the business at up to £1.5bn, although there were signs over the weekend that the bottom of the indicated range could be as low as £1.1bn.

The publication of the prospectus is later than originally planned, when GUS announced its plans to sell off part of Burberry last year. The volatile conditions of the stock market, and particularly the poor reception of the HMV float two months ago, have left investors nervous over its reception, particularly at a time when consumer spending looks set to come under pressure from economic uncertainty and the threat of rising interest rates. There will be no allocation of shares for private investors.

Burberry's operating profit for the year to April rose 30 per cent to £90m, despite the slump in the luxury goods market after the terrorist attacks in the US. Like-for-like sales were ahead 10 per cent, with overall sales up 18 per cent at £500m.

Ms Bravo plans to increase the company's international network of stores from 69 now to 100 over the next three years.