Standard Life pays boss David Nish £5m for being reassuringly dull

Standard Life chief executive David Nish took home £5 million 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 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 £2.75 million under the company’s long-term incentive scheme. That amount saw his total package almost double from the £2.6 million he got for 2011. On top of the incentive scheme came a bonus of £1.2 million, pension payments of £232,000 and other benefits of £18,000.

Keith Skeoch, head of the fund management arm, also enjoyed long-term incentive payments of £2.27 million taking his total pay to £2.6 million.

Finance director Jackie Hunt took home £2.5 million after an incentive deal worth £1.1 million.

Crawford Gillies, chairman of the insurer’s remuneration committee, says 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.”