As the now former Glanbia managing director Siobhán Talbot takes a well-earned break after a decade at the helm of the Kilkenny-based listed food group, she can do so on the back of earning a total pay package of €7.95 million last year.
The newly published Glanbia annual report shows that Talbot, who ended her term in the top job on December 31st, earned a basic salary of €1.144 million last year, up €38,000 on 2022. While an annual cash bonus and deferred shares of €1.4 million each were up a little but on a year earlier, the big change came with Ms Talbot’s long-term incentive plan (LTIP). That enabled her to receive €3.49 million, up from €2.2 million the year before. Overall, she took home a little bit more than €1.6 million more than she did in 2022.
It was also a good year for chief financial officer Mark Garvey, who saw his overall package jump to €3.6 million from €2.9 million in 2022, driven largely by an increase in his LTIPs, which increased to €1.5 million from €974,000.
While it’s undoubtedly a fair amount of money to be taking home, most Glanbia shareholders won’t be complaining too much.
The stock gained about 25 per cent during 2023, slightly ahead of the wider Iseq Overall Index. In her time in charge, Talbot turbocharged a transformation of the business that had begun under her predecessor John Moloney, pivoting the company away from dairy into essentially a US-focused consumer fitness behemoth known for its supplements such as Optimum Nutrition.
The so-called shareholder spring of a few years ago, when some investors voted against company pay awards to its top executives, seems to have passed for now, and despite activist investor Clearway Capital’s call for a break up of the business, there has been little indication that Glanbia under new chief executive Hugh Maguire is preparing to take that advice.
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