Home Retail halves chief exec’s pay

Terry Duddy, the chief executive of Home Retail Group, saw his remuneration plunge by more than half after he missed out on a bonus, as the owner of Argos and Homebase failed to hit performance targets.

Mr Duddy received a total package of £858,000 for the year to 28 February 2009, comprising his base salary and fees of £818,000 and taxable benefits, including a chauffeur and private medical insurance, of £40,000, according to its annual report posted yesterday.

After receiving a bonus of £920,000, Mr Duddy pocketed £1.77m, including base salary, fees and benefits, for the year before. After writing down the value of its Homebase retail chain by £651.2m, Home Retail made a full-year pre-tax loss of £394.2m in 2008/09.

This year, the group has frozen the base salaries of Mr Duddy and Richard Ashton, the finance director, who also saw his remuneration more than halved to £432,000 in the last financial year. The group has also replaced its co-investment plan – which allowed executives to invest up to 450 per cent of salary in shares if a maximum bonus was paid and then invested in full – as it considered the proportion of the total package potentially bound up in the plan was “too high in current circumstances”.