Tate & Lyle reviews package for executive compensation

Tate & Lyle is conducting a full review of the compensation package provided to some of the senior staff within its executive committee to ensure that it is competitive within the industry.

The executive committee includes roles such as the chief executive, group finance director, and director of global research and development.

The review will focus on features such as the bonus scheme available for these employees, executive share awards and the company pension scheme. The firm has already conducted a benchmarking exercise against companies in the UK and abroad, as some of the roles on the executive committee are based overseas.

Matt Smith, group compensation manager at Tate & Lyle, explained: “We are in the process of coming up with a list of proposals and options for the remuneration committee to go over and potentially there will be a number of areas that we think we may need to change.”

He said Tate & Lyle reviews this compensation package every three years. “We’re not doing this because of the credit crunch, our business is stable. Our last review was done three years ago and we try to conduct them on a three-year cycle,” added Smith.

The firm is using an external consultancy, Hewitt, to help with the review process and expects to introduce any small changes by December this year. Any significant changes may require more time.

The next stage of the process is for the compensation team to come up with proposals for the various options and authorise changes.

“I don’t think that anything we do will be too dramatic,” said Smith.