Earlier this month housebuilder Persimmon plunged into fresh controversy regarding the scale of its management bonus package set, which is to distribute £250m between its top three execs, and hundreds of millions more to 140 other bosses. The Times calculated that the payouts to chief executive Jeff Fairburn, financial director Mike Killoran and managing director Dave Jenkinson under the long-term incentive plan (LTIP) have added £3,100 to the cost of every single Persimmon house sold since it set it up five years ago. In fact, the package as a whole, worth over £500m and described by Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable as “obscene”, comes in around an eye-watering £7,000 per house. 

The furore over this astonishing package already cost the jobs of both Persimmon chair Nicholas Wrigley and remuneration committee chair Jonathan Davie before Christmas. However, so far Fairburn has hung on to his £100m-plus bonus. Likewise, bosses at Berkeley Group pocketed £92m this year despite 16% of shareholders voting against the remuneration package.