Total director pay comes to £3.1m
The highest paid director at Towergate earned £1.97m last year, according to the company’s annual report to bondholders.
Total director pay amounted to £3.1m in the year to 31 December 2012, with additional pension contributions of £57,151. The report stated that the highest paid director received no remuneration the previous year.
Chief executive Mark Hodges (pictured) joined Towergate in September 2011. Asked if Hodges was the highest paid director, a Towergate spokeswoman declined to comment. Other directors include chief finance officer Scott Egan and non-executive chairman Alistair Lyons.
Hodges was paid £279,000 between 1 January and 2 June 2011 when he left his position as chief executive of Aviva and was not paid a bonus. In 2010 he was paid a total of £1.6m.
Towergate’s annual report showed the company incurred costs of £414,000 from office closures, redundancies and other restructuring measures taken as part of its cost reduction and restructuring programme, down from £3.5m in 2011.
Towergate ‘managing costs’
“We will continue to focus on managing costs by implementing process efficiencies to improve customer service while reducing headcount,” the report said.
A Towergate spokeswoman said that most of the reduction would be achieved by not replacing people when they leave.
She said: “We don’t have a number that we’re aiming for. It’s part of a wider plan to concentrate on operational efficiencies and look at our regional structure.
“We’ve got lots of businesses in lots of pockets in lots of town centres and high streets. We need to consolidate our people, consolidate our expertise, and consolidate our property portfolio. In order to do that inevitably there may be a small reduction in headcount.”
Powerplace loss
Towergate’s report also revealed the company lost £11.6m on the sale of PowerPlace to Open International.
Terms of the deal for the online marketplace, which included the transfer of 48 staff, were not disclosed at the time. PowerPlace turned over £2.6m in 2012 and made an £808,000 EBITDA loss last year on turnover of £2.6m, acccording to the bondholder report for Towergate Holdings II.
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