Fink tops pay chart at £4.5m

STANLEY Fink, chief executive of hedge fund specialist Man Group, was today crowned Britain's best-paid executive as a £4m bonus catapulted his total package to £4.5m.

The man known as The Hedgemeister for his Midas touch with the complex investment products was among four directors of the group to get bonuses of above £1m.

The 46-year-old's pay puts him back at the top of the FTSE 100 pay league, currently being compiled by fat-cat watchers from the annual reports. Reckitt Benckiser chief executive Bart Becht, who made £4.3m, is in second place.

Fink's two divisional chiefs and finance director were also paid enough to put them in the top 10, alongside leading lights of British industry such as Tesco chief executive Sir Terry Leahy, Glaxo-SmithKline boss Jean-Pierre Garnier and Barclays' Matt Barrett.

At Man, Chris Chambers, who runs the Man Investments hedge funds division, was paid £1.4m for seven months' work. Kevin Davis, managing director of futures and options brokerage Man Financial got £2.9m for the year and finance director Peter Clarke got £2.5m. Clarke was also Britain's best-paid finance director the previous year, earning £1.73m.

Many of the company's traders will also be earning bonuses of more than £1m. The company's 2600 employees boast an average pay of £105,000.

Fink, who became chief executive in 2000, has been one of the architects of Man's move from small commodities broking business to the ranks of the FTSE 100. It shares have soared despite the bear market of recent years. Man's hedge funds are designed to bring in money for clients whether markets go up or down, making them the fastest-growing and most controversial asset class in the City in recent years.

The success of the company, whose profits for the past year jumped to £434.5m from £296.6m the year before, has kept Man's well-paid executives out of the corporate governance spotlight as investors have enjoyed exceptional performance. A £1000 investment in Man's shares in 1999 would today be worth £4853 as the stock has raced up from 238p to 1592p.