Wates Group's top earner made £3.3m last year

Wates Group’s highest-paid director was handsomely rewarded to the tune of £3.3m for his efforts last year.

The money is thought to have gone to chief executive Paul Drechsler.

The latest sum was made up of £1.1m in basic pay plus a further £2.2m top-up thanks to Wates’ long-term incentive scheme.

In 2007 there was a pay package worth a total of £1.7m. This was a combination of £730,000 as basic pay and £900,000 by way of incentive scheme pay-out, plus another £100,000 for his pension scheme.

Wates Group enjoyed a pre-tax profit of £47m last year (comparable figure in 2007: £38m)

Wates financial results for 2008 show turnover contributions were:

• £990m – construction
• £18m – residential development
• £4m – other activities

Pre-tax profit contributions from these three operations were:

• £42m – construction
• £11m – residential developments
• loss of £6m – other activities