TalkTalk boss made £4m as £1.5bn was wiped from shares
Former TalkTalk boss Dido Harding pocketed £4million as the firm's shares plunged by 45 per cent, accounts revealed yesterday.
The troubled phone and broadband company handed the 49-year-old £1.14million for 2016, on top of £2.8million she was paid the previous year.
It came despite falling revenues and a damaging cyber attack two years ago that left the FTSE 250 company's reputation in tatters.
Harding, who stepped down from her role last month, was also handed a pay rise of £50,000 that took the mother-of-two's base pay to £600,000 last year.
Out of the saddle: Horse riding fan Harding, right, quit TalkTalk in May. She was handed £1.14m overall for 2016, on top of £2.8m she was paid the previous year
A spokesman for the company insisted it had been her first pay rise since joining TalkTalk six years before, adding that bonuses were paid through a long-term incentive plan and had been donated to charity.
'The incentive plan payment was based on previous years' performance,' the spokesman said.
In the two-year period, shares in the company fell from 344p to 190p, wiping £1.5billion off its value.
High Pay Centre director Stefan Stern said it was another example of boardroom excess.
He said: 'The company has been inflicted with more than its fair share of problems – yet those in the exclusive executive club seem to have, once again, left with enormous payments.
'People will be pretty startled to see she has left with this sort of pay even when there are severe concerns about performance.
'That's now how the system is supposed to work and this is another example of it failing.'
TalkTalk suffered the data breach – when hackers accessed the personal information of nearly 160,000 customers – in October 2015.
The company also triggered further outrage by barring customers from cancelling their contracts, instead offering them a free upgrade which was taken up by half a million of its customers.
The negative publicity still sparked a wave of defections, with a reported 230,000 having left.
Following Harding's departure last month, executive chairman Sir Charles Dunstone and new chief executive Tristia Harrison, who is on £100,000 less a year than her predecessor, have been left to pick up the pieces.
Billionaire Dunstone, 52, said TalkTalk needed to return to its roots as a budget provider and become 'a force to be reckoned with' again'.
In its annual report, the company said revenues fell 3 per cent to £1.8billion in the year to March 31. But it said its customer base was growing again.
It claimed new low-price plans and a falling churn of customers would help its revenues rise.