What £2.76 Can Get You

[tramssirhc]

From Private Eye 1680 24 July - 6 August 2026

"As Eye 1625 predicted, the chief executive, whose board was persuaded to recommend the takeover (after previously resisting it) fared particularly well. Once the ink was dry on the deal, a "long term incentive plan" was "accelerated" and thanks to the elevated prices of shares... paid out big time.

Whilst the precise payout isn't known, the effect was to increase [one workers] pay from £2.1 million in 2024/25 to £6.9 million in 2025/26.

All this comes despite finances looking ever more beleaguered, with pre-tax profits adjusted for one-off items falling by 40 percent to £126 million. Things weren't helped by...... the bankers and advisers costs on the sale... which have reached £85 million. And there's the small matter of setting aside £150 million for fines, legal claims and a tax dispute in Italy.

Then come the costs of funding the takeover. In the first year of ownership, £114 million had to be found to pay the interest on loans taken out to pay for the acquisition".

Maybe Martin Walsh can tell us if he brought these costs up when he calculated his cost per item figure.

[loyalsnail]

The murky world of takeovers and acquisitions. It's not a Royal Mail problem, it's a general rich getting richer problem.

[tramssirhc]

The murky world of takeovers and acquisitions. It's not a Royal Mail problem, it's a general rich getting richer problem.

Its our problem though because the CWU are telling us we are the problem, when clearly we aren't.

[loyalsnail]

The murky world of takeovers and acquisitions. It's not a Royal Mail problem, it's a general rich getting richer problem.

Its our problem though because the CWU are telling us we are the problem, when clearly we aren't.

One off takeover costs are negligible when compared to ongoing resourcing costs. That's a fact. It doesn't however detract from the cost of the takeover.

Workers are not the problem, the cost of pay increases for workers is, amongst various other operating costs.

Also worth noting that the long term incentive plan is not the ogre the article is trying to make it out to be - it's a perfectly legitimate part of a senior employees pay, they just happen to have a large proportion of their total pay paid as 'bonus'. It actually SAVES Royal Mail money to do it that way as the bonuses only pay out if certain criteria are met (or if an outside event, such as a takeover, invalidates the criteria and the remuneration committee deems it justifiable to pay out exceptionally).