that's a heck of a year!
Rupert Neate Wealth correspondent
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@RupertNeate
<time itemprop="datePublished" datetime="2018-11-21T07:41:03-0500" data-timestamp="1542804063000" class="content__dateline-wpd js-wpd content__dateline-wpd--modified" style="cursor: pointer; display: inline-block;">Wed 21 Nov 2018 07.41 EST
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Denise Coates, the multibillionaire founder and boss of the gambling firm Bet365, paid herself £265m last year in a record-breaking pay deal for the chief executive of a British company.
The huge pay package, which equates to nearly £726,000 a day, dwarfs the previous UK record set by Coates when she collected £217m a year earlier.
Coates was paid a base salary of £220,004,000 in the year to March 2018, accounts filed at Companies House on Wednesday reveal. On top of this, she collected dividend payments of £45m from her more than 50% shareholding in the Stoke-based company. Bet365 made a £660m profit last year from a record £52.6bn of bets.
Her pay is more than 9,500 times the average UK salary, 1,300 times that collected by the prime minister and more than double that paid to the entire Stoke City football team, which Bet365 owns and which was relegated from the Premier League last season.
Luke Hildyard, a director of the High Pay Centre, said: “Why does someone who is already a billionaire need to take such an obscene amount of money out of their company? It is difficult to find a reason beyond pure greed.
“A payment of this size would be impossible to justify for someone whose business was in unquestionably life-enhancing products or services. It is doubly offensive when awarded to a betting company CEO at a time when problem gambling is spiralling out of control.”
Coates, 51, who keeps herself out of the public eye and very rarely gives media interviews, owns just over 50% of the company. With the rest of her family – including her brother John (co-chief executive), husband Richard Smith (a Stoke City director) and father (chair of Stoke City) – she controls 93% of Bet365. The total pay to Bet365’s directors and “key management personnel” was £449m, up from £322m a year earlier.
Bet365’s customers wagered almost £52.3bn last year – £5.5bn more the year earlier. The company’s TV ads are fronted by the actor Ray Winstone and broadcast during high-profile sporting events.
Rupert Neate Wealth correspondent
<svg width="14" height="14" viewBox="-298 390 14 14" class="i-left__svg inline-twitter-bird__svg inline-icon__svg"></svg>
@RupertNeate
<time itemprop="datePublished" datetime="2018-11-21T07:41:03-0500" data-timestamp="1542804063000" class="content__dateline-wpd js-wpd content__dateline-wpd--modified" style="cursor: pointer; display: inline-block;">Wed 21 Nov 2018 07.41 EST
</time>
Denise Coates, the multibillionaire founder and boss of the gambling firm Bet365, paid herself £265m last year in a record-breaking pay deal for the chief executive of a British company.
The huge pay package, which equates to nearly £726,000 a day, dwarfs the previous UK record set by Coates when she collected £217m a year earlier.
Coates was paid a base salary of £220,004,000 in the year to March 2018, accounts filed at Companies House on Wednesday reveal. On top of this, she collected dividend payments of £45m from her more than 50% shareholding in the Stoke-based company. Bet365 made a £660m profit last year from a record £52.6bn of bets.
Her pay is more than 9,500 times the average UK salary, 1,300 times that collected by the prime minister and more than double that paid to the entire Stoke City football team, which Bet365 owns and which was relegated from the Premier League last season.
Luke Hildyard, a director of the High Pay Centre, said: “Why does someone who is already a billionaire need to take such an obscene amount of money out of their company? It is difficult to find a reason beyond pure greed.
“A payment of this size would be impossible to justify for someone whose business was in unquestionably life-enhancing products or services. It is doubly offensive when awarded to a betting company CEO at a time when problem gambling is spiralling out of control.”
Coates, 51, who keeps herself out of the public eye and very rarely gives media interviews, owns just over 50% of the company. With the rest of her family – including her brother John (co-chief executive), husband Richard Smith (a Stoke City director) and father (chair of Stoke City) – she controls 93% of Bet365. The total pay to Bet365’s directors and “key management personnel” was £449m, up from £322m a year earlier.
Bet365’s customers wagered almost £52.3bn last year – £5.5bn more the year earlier. The company’s TV ads are fronted by the actor Ray Winstone and broadcast during high-profile sporting events.
