Garrett-Cox gets £1.1m after bumper year for Alliance Trust

KATHERINE Garrett-Cox, chief executive of Dundee-based Alliance Trust, has picked up a £1 million-plus pay package for the second year running.

Garrett-Cox was awarded a £520,000 annual bonus after the investment giant achieved its strongest performance in two decades.

In addition to her £425,250 salary, benefits and payments in lieu of pension, her total package for the year was just under £1.1m, up £63,000 on the previous 11-month period.

Finance director Alan Trotter received a £185,000 bonus as part of a £529,745 package, up from £456,909.

Robert Burgess, the former head of the group’s savings arm who left the business last year, received £537,742 including £491,372 in “other payments” which included compensation for loss of office.

During 2012, Alliance Trust delivered a 12.4 per cent total shareholder return, marginally ahead of various index peers.

The FTSE-250 company raised its total dividend by 7 per cent to 9.63p per share, the 46th consecutive year of dividend increases.

At the time of the results, Garrett-Cox warned that the market rally in recent months was not expected to continue “at the current pace”.

The discount in the value of its assets to its shares – an area of difficulty for the group last year – has remained below 15 per cent since the year end, which represented “huge progress”, Garrett-Cox said.

Following a year of significant change for the trust, Garrett-Cox compared the business to a “supertanker” that has “taken a while to turn”.