BT freezes top pay - again

BT has frozen top pay for the third year running and even the bonuses have slipped for most of the board.

CEO Ben Verwaayen's pay is still formidable, though, with a basic salary of £700,000, pension allowance of £110,000, bonus up 10 per cent to £859,000 and deferred bonus of £429,500 in shares - adding up to a shade over £2m. By comparison, last year he took home £3m.

Verwaayen keeps his £250,000 housing allowance and gets one million new share options. These are priced at 199.5p; the current share price is around 180p.

Pierre Danon, head of BT Retail, saw his take-home drop from £829,000 to £750,000 as his bonus drifted down to £259,000 from last year's £338,000. BT is losing 150,000 to 200,000 retail customers a month.

Finance director Ian Livingston saw his bottom line drop from £1.1m to £913,000 as his bonus slipped from £338,000 to £325,000.

Andy Green, head of BT Global, actually boosted his bonus from £306,000 to £336,000 and receives a total pay of £791,000 per year. Things at BT Global have been looking up, with unexpected success in the US and two big NHS wins.

Chairman Sir Christopher Bland also had a bit of a pay boost from £512,000 to £532,000.

Sir Peter Bonfield, former CEO of BT, picked up a pension of £331,000, up from £322,000 last year.