CHARLES Hammond, the chief executive of ports and property group Forth Ports, had more than £200,000 cut from his pay and benefits package last year.
The company's annual report, published yesterday, shows that Hammond was given a £40,000 salary rise in 2008 but his total remuneration still dropped below £1 million.
According to the report and accounts, Hammond's basic salary in 2008 went up t
o £460,000. However his bonus, partly calculated on the value of the group's property assets, fell from £420,000 in 2007 to £299,000.
A payment for other benefits, including a sum in lieu of company pension contribution, fell from £253,670 to £132,486.
The fall was partly explained by the fact that £200,000 "special bonuses" were paid in 2007 to Hammond, finance director Wilson Murray and Perry Glading, managing director of Port of Tillbury.
Hammond's total remuneration in 2008 was £891,486, down from £1,093,670 in 2007.
Murray's basic salary went up to £285,000 from £260,000, but his overall remuneration fell to £558,921 from £667,949. Glading's basic salary was boosted by £30,000 to £280,000 but his overall remuneration fell from £573,146 to £486,070.
In the accounts, the company's remuneration committee said that if its bonus criteria had been applied, director bonuses would have been payable in full even though the group took a £222m writedown on the value of its property assets in 2008. Instead, the committee took the decision to cut the bonuses.
Last month Forth reported a £30.7m pre-tax loss for 2008.
