Former Ladbrokes CEO Richard Glynn recently left the company after a few less-than-successful years but received handsome severance payments, according to UK media reports based on annual report disclosures, of GBP 1.7million over the next 12 months, a number that apparently includes damages of GBP 846,000 and a potential bonus.
Glynn’s annual salary on departure was reportedly GBP 580,000.
Last year the IB Times reported that in 2013 Glynn was given a total pay package of GBP 4.7 million, an effective increase of 85 percent, thanks in part to a one-off GBP 3.9 million share plan that was voted through on his appointment in 2010 and vested in 2013…all despite a more than 60 percent drop in group profits.
Glynn was in the headlines again this week when his name appeared on a list of 100 leading British businessmen which appeared in The Telegraph newspaper, voicing their support for the Conservative Party in the upcoming UK general election.
His name was followed by the Ladbrokes company title, implying by accident or design that he was still with the company, and that was pounced on by critics keen to discount the impact of the exercise.
Glynn’s successor at Ladbrokes, Jim Mullen, clearly felt strongly enough about the use of the company’s name to issue a statement on the matter, asserting:
“You may have seen our ex-CEO joined business leaders in signing a letter in the Daily Telegraph yesterday. He like all voters is entitled to his view.
“However, I want to make it clear that our business is to take bets on the General Election, not to tell people how to vote. There are many shades of political opinion in our workforce of 15,000 never mind ex-employees or our customer base of millions of people.
“My vote is worth the same as theirs and their choice of vote is their business. So I won’t be signing any letters in this, or any other General Election, that seeks to tell people how to vote.”