Macfarlane chief sees £57,000 pay rise

Peter Atkinson, the chief executive of packaging firm Macfarlane Group, enjoyed a £57,000 boost to his remuneration package last year to £390,000, according to the firm’s annual report.

Atkinson’s £15,000 bonus was discretionary and based on “non-financial objectives”. But the chief executive missed out on an extra performance-related top-up that could have been worth up to 40 per cent of his £309,000 base salary.

His total package included a £51,000 pension pot allowance, while the firm saw its final salary pension scheme deficit widen to £20.5 million last year due to low bond yields.

John Love, the group’s finance director, received a total pay packet of £157,000 in 2011, up just slightly from £156,00 in 2010. He too received a discretionary £7,000, but missed out on an additional bonus based on the firm’s financial objectives.

Both directors saw shares awarded under a performance plan in 2010 lapse last year. The firm noted in its annual accounts that the share price on 31 December was 18.75p, compared with 30.5p at the end of the year previous.

The outgoing chairman, Archie Hunter, a former long-standing board member of the Royal bank of Scotland, was paid £61,000, which was the same as last year. Graeme Bissett, a former partner at defunct accountancy firm Arthur Andersen, will succeed Hunter at the annual general meeting on 8 May.

In March, the Glasgow-based firm posted a 16 per cent increase in pre-tax profit before exceptional items to £3.9m, while turnover rose 7 per cent to £144.6m in 2011.