Former BT chief Patterson gives up £500,000 bonus

The former chief executive of BT Group has waived half of his £1m annual bonus for his final year at the helm amid a fresh escalation of shareholder hostility towards multimillion pound pay deals at blue-chip companies.

Sky News has learnt that BT's annual report, to be published on Thursday, will disclose that Gavin Patterson elected to forfeit £500,000 of the bonus award following discussions with the telecoms giant's board.

Sources said that Mr Patterson's decision to volunteer the bonus cut had been made in recognition of the continuing City climate surrounding boardroom pay and his departure from the company.

Including the £500,000 bonus, his total pay for the 10 months he worked at BT last year was about £1.7m, according to insiders.

Mr Patterson stepped down in February, handing over the reins of the UK's biggest residential telecoms supplier and the owner of mobile network EE to Philip Jansen, the former Worldpay boss.

The change of leadership came after Mr Patterson's five-year stint at the helm of the group, which owns the broadband infrastructure network Openreach, was ended after discussions with its new chairman, Jan du Plessis.

The company has fought a series of protracted battles in recent years with Ofcom, the industry regulator‎, over issues including the future of Openreach.

However, people close to BT say its relationship with Ofcom improved markedly under Mr Patterson's stewardship, and pointed to the rollout of super-fast broadband, the launch of BT Sport and the successful integration of EE as notable achievements by the former BT chief.

A year ago, he announced plans to axe thousands of jobs alongside symbolic moves including the departure from its long-serving London headquarters, which was presented as an attempt to accelerate BT's modernisation.

Among the other major decisions he took was the closure of BT's final salary pension scheme, a challenge that previous bosses had decided not to address.

Mr Patterson's decision to give up half his annual bonus is likely to help avert the prospect of a repeat of last year's annual meeting, where 34% of investors voted against BT's remuneration report.

So far in 2019, shareholders in companies such as the estate agent Foxtons, fund manager Standard Life Aberdeen and Metro Bank, the high street lender, have vented their anger at executive pay deals.

His successor announced last week that BT would spend £50m each year awarding shares to its 100,000 employees for the first time.

So far, Mr Jansen has delivered a broad endorsement of Mr Patterson's strategy.

The company's shares are now trading at 204p, broadly flat on their level of a year ago, giving the company a market capitalisation of just over £20bn.

BT declined to comment on Wednesday.