Burberry award chief executive shares worth almost £15m

Fashion company Burberry handed Christopher Bailey, promoted to chief executive last month, a one-off award of shares worth almost £15m last summer.

The award of the shares, which are not related to performance, was revealed in the annual report, which also showed that Bailey was handed another one-off award of shares in December 2010 worth around £4m at the time.

The disclosure of the share handouts follows the revelation last month that Bailey, previously the company's chief creative officer, was handed a golden hello in shares worth up to £7.6m. Following his promotion to chief executive, to replace Angela Ahrendts who has joined Apple, Bailey was awarded 500,000 shares, which are related to performance and could pay out between 2017 and 2019.

The share price last night was £14.95.

The UK-born executive, who remains both the chief creative and chief executive officer, is also receiving £440,000 of cash allowances on top of a £1.1m salary and annual cash bonus of up to £2.2m.

In total Bailey could receive up to £10.3m this year, depending on the company's performance.

The company provides little disclosure about how many shares Bailey – who is in his 13th year at Burberry – owns or could own through share schemes. But it does reveal that – well before he became chief executive – he was handed 1m shares in July 2013 and 350,000 in December 2010, which he will receive between 2015 and 2018 and which are not related to performance.

In the annual report, Ahrendts - who is holding on to two share bonuses worth up to £6.2m and is receiving £40m in shares from her employer Apple - writes that she is looking forward to watching the company develop.

Sir John Peace, chairman of the company and nominations committee, said in the annual report that Bailey had been appointed to the enlarged role because of "unique qualities and deep experience" and that head hunters were not used to find a successor to Ahrendts.

Other annual reports released on Thursday show that the boss of Marks & Spencer, Marc Bolland, missed out on bonuses and rejected a pay rise. His salary was unchanged at £970,000 and his total pay down from £2.1m to £1.6m.