M&S boss received 39% pay hike in 2024/25 before cyberattack

LONDON (Reuters) -Marks & Spencer's Chief Executive Stuart Machin saw his total pay package increase 39% to 7.1 million pounds ($9.6 million) in the British retailer's 2024/25 financial year, its annual report showed on Monday.

Following a damaging cyberattack in April this year, from which M&S is still recovering, the company's Remuneration Committee considered whether any adjustments were needed to the incentive outcomes for the year to March 29, 2025, but concluded that no changes were required, the report said.

M&S' Remuneration Committee plans to re-visit the matter of the cyberattack before next year's annual report.

The group's profit before tax and adjusting items rose 22% in the 2024/25 year and its share price jumped 38% in 2024.

The cyberattack, first disclosed on April 21, compromised customer data and has left M&S unable to accept online orders for clothing and homewares for over five weeks.

M&S said last month it expected online disruption to continue throughout June and into July and forecast the attack would cost it about 300 million pounds in lost operating profit in its 2025/26 year.

Machin's 7.1 million pounds for 2024/25 was made up of salary and pension benefit of 894,000 pounds, a bonus of 1.64 million pounds and a vested performance share plan of 4.56 million pounds.

A spokesperson for M&S said almost 90% of Machin's pay was linked to the performance of the business and its share price, with his package reflecting growth under his leadership over the last three years.

"Over 75% of Stuart's pay is made up of long-term and deferred share awards, subject to waiting periods and tied to future share price performance," the spokesperson said.

M&S chairman Archie Norman said the group would "bounce back better and stronger".

"I am confident that in a year's time the cyber incident will prove to have been a bump in the road along the path to growth, even if it does not feel like that today," he wrote in the report.

($1 = 0.7379 pounds)

(Reporting by James Davey in London and DhanushVignesh Babu in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber and Susan Fenton)