back to article Dixons Retail boss pockets £1m in face of consumer meltdown

Dixons Retail chief exec John Browett trousered over £1m in rewards during the most recent financial year, despite the group posting steep losses as it struggled to cope with the consumer meltdown. Browett, who joined Dixons from Tesco in 2007, is masterminding a major cost-cutting drive to turn the losses into profits by …

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  1. jai

    in the wrong business

    Seems to only way to get rich these days is to run a company into the ground.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Toothless

    Major shareholders are investment companies and pension funds - these guys look after each other. Just wait, they'll approve the renumeration committe report which will reward failure.

    "..and may have to explain why during his tenure the share price has sunk from 150 pence to around one-tenth of that level" - if only we could tell our pension funds how to vote :(

  3. Asgard
    Unhappy

    The same pattern again and again

    So they continue to stuff cash into their pockets whilst the company flounders ... oh wonderful. :(

    Its like sipping Champagne on the deck of the Titanic while its sinking?!. But then the greedy bosses know they have a money lifeboat ready and waiting to take them to safety if it sinks, so to speak. Shame about everyone else being taken down with the ship. But then we have seen so many times how all the little people just like us, don't really matter to the greedy powerful bosses, as they only care about themselves.

    Bosses like this show through their actions, they desire no staff loyalty what so ever, because ultimately they show they have no real loyalty to their staff. They are only in it for themselves and be dammed the consequences and hardship for everyone else around them. :(

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    He can easily afford...

    ...The extended warranty, then!

  5. David Hicks

    I wish someone would give me a million quid

    for being a total failure.

    As it is I can only command a a small fraction of that much and I actually have to provide useful, profitable work. Maybe I'm doing something wrong here.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Megaphone

    To be fair......

    Not ALL bosses are in it for themselves. Richard Branson for one is loyal to his staff in general and I am sure that here are many others who do as well.

    Unfortunately, there are far too many who have managed to write contracts for themselves which gives them a bonus which seems to relate only to whether they have been there not how well they have done.

    I so understand the premise though as I have worked in a particular company where the staff were told that although we have made a good profit this year (whenever it was), times will be tough next year so no one will get any rises - oh, except for me who gets a quarter mill bonus.

    Bastard!! They justify their huge packages as down to market forces. That's what you've got to pay for good CEOs. (One that's dropped a share price by that much?) However when the group of which I was a part tried to say that on the international market we could earn more, we were told we could leave any time, knowing damn well that the majority wouldn't.

    Perhaps that IS something that governments might legislate for - that all contracts with annual bonuses as part of the package, must have a conditional clause that the bonus can only paid if a certain criteria is reached, and the criteria must be a reasonably stringent.

    I can't see this being any different than the consumer clause that states that an article must be fit for purpose and must last a reasonable time, not expire 1 day out of the warranty period.

    Some condition that shareholders, or for that matter, staff can challenge if a bonus is received which is not considered to have been earned.

    I may be opening a can of worms but I am sure that someone could come up with a suitable wording for a law to fit this.

    OK, had my daily rant. I can calm down now and have a cup of tea.

    And just to add, I hate legislation of this kind, and I have no problems with people earning big money, if they deserve it, but if CEOs and other higher management types can't act responsibly then I see no alternative for it.

    OK, my morning rant is over now, so I can put down the loud-hailer and have a cup of tea.

    1. Arrrggghh-otron

      Mark Thomas perhaps...

      A while back Mark Thomas did a thing called the Mark Thomas Manifesto where members of his audience were invited to submit their ideas for his manifesto. My favourite was that CEOs Execs etc had their salaries capped at something like 2.5 times the national average. If they wanted more money, they would have to pay their employees more, thus raising the nation average wage and by design their own.

      Strangely this idea has met with hostility from some people I have mentioned it to in the past. Seems odd to me that it should. I figure that the argument that you have to pay through the nose for 'good' CEOs etc is bizarre when there are plenty of competent people who are paid a pittance and never get the chance to rise up the ranks.

  7. LuMan
    Unhappy

    Not surprising at all.

    This isn't the first time this has happened - particularly at Dixons (or DSG, or DSGi, or whatever they call themselves this week). I remember being made redundant from DSG nearly a decade ago, not because the company posted a loss (it didn't), but because it didn't make as much as the 'analysts' suggested it would. Cue: shouty shareholders and the CE decides to dump a load of staff.... and then awards himself a cash bonus which would have kept a couple of us employed for another ten years.

    It's politics. The board exists to keep the shareholders happy and the rich-club rich. The workers? Just a means to an end and disposable. Sad. Very sad.

  8. Adam Trickett

    John Lewis

    I believe that the salary of the top people at John Lewis is capped at a multiple of the lowest paid at John Lewis. While I believe its a big multiple, it still means that the CEO of John Lewis isn't paid anything like the same as the CEO of Dixons.

    Interestingly John Lewis is doing quite a lot better than Dixons and has for many years.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Happy

      A Good Business Model

      Most of the staff seem happy and helpfull.

      A store that the customers find it a pleasure to visit.

      A store that inspires confidence in the purchase.

      There are good business models: why are there so many idiots who think they can do better with bad ones?

      Nope. I'm not an employee, and never have been anything more than a happy customer.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Browett pockets money for what? About time the shareholders were given Dividend

    After 25 years with the company, recently made redundant due to his restructures in Retail Support Centre, and seeing his other changes within company to save money, its disgracefull that he takes this amount of money.

    Why are the shareholders not being paid dividend and have not been paid any for the last few years now?

    Everytime he opens his mouth the shares plummet, what business acumen does he actually hold?

    Every weekly blog issued on the company Intranet starts "this week l have been in x Counrty today, then Y then Z"

    Since he joined Dixons Retail, the shares have plummeted time and time again, is he paid to remove and totally destroy Dixons Retail and see the chain removed from the High Street (not many left already) and the Retail Parks?

    About time greed was replaced by doing the job he is paid for and improve the company and looking after its Shareholders, no wonder one of the Major Shareholders pulled all its shares out a couple months ago as was so concerned that the company was gioing under. That was one admission that was divulged to staff a few months ago!!

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