Two ScS directors have seen the number of shares awarded to them in the chain’s long-term incentive plan cut after accountancy changes.
Under the retailer’s 2020 LTIP, Chris Muir, cfo and Marie Liston, corporate services director would have been entitled to 73.9% of the scheme’s shares as underlying earnings per share hit 36.2p: a minimum of 31.6p was required for any shares to be awarded, with 38.7p needed for a full payout.
However, accountancy changes and the chain’s programme of buying back shares has contributed to the earnings figure being reduced.
‘The remuneration committee are, however, conscious that the award was granted before transition to [accountancy standard] IFRS16, at a time when there were 40,009,109 shares in issue [there were 35,691,824 as of 11 October] , and that the group has benefited during the year from an effective tax rate lower than the statutory rate,’ says a statement.
‘As a consequence, the remuneration committee have recalculated EPS using the same accounting basis, number of shares and statutory tax rate as at the date of the award and based the vesting calculation on the adjusted EPS of 33.79p. This resulted in an award of 48.2%.’
This saw Muir receive 82,034 shares. He has sold 39,581 shares back to the group’s Employee Benefit Trust at a price of 139p a share to cover his tax liability from the share award, and transferred the remaining shares to his wife. The family shareholding is now 179,557 shares, some 0.5% of the company.
Liston sold 11,133 of the 23,074 shares she received to the EBT for the same price to cover her tax liability. She now has 153,117 shares representing some 0.43% of total shares.
