Harrods greater than doubled the pay of its managing director, Michael Ward, final yr to £2.3m, at the same time as the corporate collected nearly £6m in authorities help beneath the furlough scheme.
Ward, understood to be the highest-paid director on the upmarket division retailer in Knightsbridge, west London, elevated his package deal from £1m the earlier yr after Harrods returned to revenue as pandemic restrictions eased.
Harrods Restricted, the corporate that operates the London retailer, made a pretax revenue of £51m within the yr to the tip of January 2022 after a loss of £68m a year earlier. Gross sales soared by 35% to £582m on the easing of lockdown restrictions and the return of worldwide travellers, together with these from the Center East.
The division retailer stated it had benefited from furlough funds of £5.8m within the 12 months to 29 January, though that was significantly decrease than the £23.5m within the prior yr. The discount in help got here as excessive road lockdowns decreased and the variety of employees at Harrods Restricted fell by greater than 400 to three,511.
The retailer additionally elevated inner royalty funds from £23.2m to £33.5m. The funds cowl curiosity on a mortgage from Harrods’ homeowners, the Qatar Funding Authority sovereign wealth fund, which has a property portfolio in London that features the Shard skyscraper and elements of the Olympic Village in Stratford. No dividend funds had been made within the yr.
The accounts reveal Harrods has a £620m mortgage that matures in October subsequent yr after securing an 18-month extension. Ward informed the Instances, which first reported Harrods’ revenue figures, that he was comfy the retailer had ample cashflow to cowl greater rates of interest.
Ward informed the Sunday Instances the enterprise was on monitor to bounce again this yr to the gross sales of about £870m achieved pre-pandemic.
A spokesperson for Harrods stated it was “extraordinarily grateful to have acquired help from the federal government” as its retailer closed for 10 weeks between January and April 2021.
It stated the highest-paid director’s wage improve mirrored a “substantial pay discount in 2020” in addition to making an allowance for that “Harrods outperformed its targets and predictions, and considerably outperformed the broader luxurious trade”.
