Big payoffs for failing us
BANKER of the week is Gordon Pell, deputy chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, who retires on £9.8m despite presiding over the biggest loss in UK corporate history.
Pell, the last survivor of a board which lost 24.1bn in 2008 and forced 70 per cent of the bank's liabilities onto the taxpayer, will sail off into the sunset on 517,000 a year.
He joins Sir Fred Goodwin, the bank's former chief executive, who retired on a 703,000-a-year pension aged 50, in securing a massive payoff.
Pell's early retirement from the 908,000-a-year post comes after 20bn in government money was ploughed into the bank – I'm sure we won't be seeing that again.
In March the 60-year-old told MPs he took 'collective responsibility' for the bank's failings.
Tell that to the 9,000 to be laid off from RBS this year.
News of Pell's pension came as the Bank of England kept interest rates on hold in favour of, in effect, printing an extra 50bn to pump into the economy.
The extension of 'quantitative easing' could be a sign that Alistair Darling's prediction that economic growth would return by the end of the year was optimistic.
But recent surveys appear to show the pace of the decline is slowing, and the bank has the authority to pump as much as 150bn into the system.
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Wednesday 23 May 2012
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