Taylor pay doubles in move to Barclays

BARCLAYS has agreed a pounds 737,000- a-year pay package for Martin Taylor, its new chief executive, according to contract details made available to shareholders.

This is nearly half as much again as Barclays' highest paid director earned in 1992, and more than twice Mr Taylor's earnings as chairman and chief executive of Courtaulds Textiles. Sir John Quinton, chairman of Barclays in 1992, earned only pounds 265,000.

Mr Taylor's contract is for two years at basic pay this year of pounds 500,000 and a guaranteed bonus of pounds 150,000. There will also be payments of pounds 87,500 to two bank pension schemes.

Barclays made clear that although the two-year contract was out of line with company policy it would revert afterwards to the one- year contract given to the other executive directors, plus a performance bonus.

Mr Taylor was reported as saying at the time of his appointment that he would be getting only a small pay rise, but this now appears to have been tongue-in-cheek.

The pay deal is likely to anger Barclays employees, who were told this month that a further 3,000 jobs were to go, beyond already planned departures. Like all the clearing banks, Barclays has also been striving to control staff pay.

Mr Taylor was poached from Courtaulds after a lengthy search by headhunters. Andrew Buxton, the chairman, was forced by shareholders to agree to shed his chief executive role in the wake of pre-tax losses in 1992 of pounds 242m.

Mr Taylor is likely to be the highest-paid clearing banker, though Midland paid comparable amounts to one of its directors in the late 1980s.

The 1993 results, to be released on 10 March, are expected to show a pre-tax profit of more than pounds 800m as bad debts fall.