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M&G Fund Manager Scoops £15m-Plus Pay Deal

A top fund manager at M&G Investments has scooped a £15m-plus pay deal for the second consecutive year, cementing his status as one of the highest-paid executives at a London-listed company.

Sky News can reveal that Richard Woolnough, who oversees nearly £35bn of clients' money at the fund management arm of Prudential (HKSE: 2378.HK - news) , was the mystery recipient of the bumper package.

Prudential's annual report, released on Tuesday, disclosed that an individual received between £15.3m and £15.4m but declined to name the person because they do not sit on the company's main board.

However, sources confirmed that Mr Woolnough was the unidentified employee, following the achievement of performance metrics last year which included the M&G Optimal Income Fund being Europe's best-selling mutual fund.

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The £15m-plus award comes on top of a £17.5m payout to Mr Woolnough in 2013, and places the bond manager firmly among the City's top-paid money managers.

The timing of the pay award may be sensitive for Prudential, given the proximity of May's General Election.

Fund managers' pay deals, and the means through which they earn them, have become an increasingly visible target for pay campaigners, with the Institute of Directors calling in recent months for a more detailed investigation of the sector.

People familiar with the situation said that Mr Woolnough's pay award was "based on performance", pointing to annualised returns for the Optimal Income Fund of 8.19% since its launch in 2006, against a sector average outline by the Investment Association of 4.7%.

Mr Woolnough's other funds include the M&G Strategic Corporate Bond Fund and M&G Corporate Bond Fund, which manage £10.2bn fund in total.

One of the City's top fund managers, Mr Woolnough has a low profile outside the UK financial sector, having joined M&G after stints at Lloyds Merchant Bank, the Italian insurer Assicurazioni Generali, and SG Warburg.

In 1995, he became a fund manager at Old Mutual (Other OTC: ODMTY - news) , where he also spent almost ten years.

Mr Woolnough's Optimal Income Fund launched in 2006 to provide investors with an alternative to traditional corporate bond funds.

It has a mandate to hold 50% of its assets in bonds, but is more flexible than many competitors and has almost trebled during the last two-and-a-half years.

That rapid growth is partly explained by investors' search for "safe" income when interest rates have been at historic lows.

Under disclosure rules for public companies, Prudential, which owns M&G, has to disclose by name the remuneration packages awarded to board members.

The company is in the process of seeking approval from regulators to name Mike Wells, the head of its US operations, as its new group chief executive.

The insurer's annual report also disclosed that both Mr Wells and Tidjane Thiam, who is stepping down as its chief executive to run Credit Suisse (LSE: 0QP5.L - news) , the Swiss banking group, were paid more than £11m last year.

Like his board colleagues, the vast majority of Mr Woolnough's pay is understood to be in the form of Prudential shares and deferred for several years.

Prudential and M&G both declined to comment.