Marc Bolland, Chief Executive Officer at Marks and Spencer has been rewarded with a bonus for the first time in two years. Following the British retailer‘s first profit rise in 4 years, and because the business met its target, Bolland pocketed £596,000and his pay rose a third from £1.6m to £2.1m in the last financial year. In addition, he was given shares worth £2.4, bringing his total remuneration up to £4.5m.

Last year Bolland and other senior execs were forced to forgo bonuses due to company‘s consecutive profit warnings.

In the high street retail giant‘s annual report, Chairman Robert Swannell said “This year, we have seen outstanding performance in some areas of the business, but performance below our expectations in others.”

The food business did particularly well and in turn the Executive Director of M&S’s food division Steve Rowe, earned a £653,000 bonus for the year with a total package of £1.4m.

Meanwhile Dalton Philips, ex-CEO at Morrisons, was handed a payout of more than £3m. Shareholders protested yesterday when Philips, who was sacked in January over poor sales figures, was given a £1m bonus despite his poor performance. According to proxy voting results revealed at the grocer‘s annual meeting, over a third of investors were against the decision, although Chairman Andy Higginson cited that Philips had been paid the minimum amount to which he was contractually entitled to.

It was a different story at Britain‘s second largest supermarket Sainsbury‘s. Because the big four retailer did not meet its sales and profit targets last year, Chief Exec Mike Coupe missed out on an annual bonus.

In an annual report published by Sainsbury‘s yesterday, it was revealed that Coupe‘s annual salary dropped to £1.5m in the year ending March, down £0.5 from the previous year when he was serving as Commercial Director.

Neither Coupe nor senior directors were handed annual bonuses although Coupe was given £458,000 worth of deferred share awards which will pay out in 2017.

Coupe succeeds Justin King, who left Sainsbury‘s last year just as it began to suffer from the growth of discounters Aldi and Lidl, the increasingly intense price war and food price deflation.

Coupe took over from his predecessor Justin King in July last year just as Sainsbury‘s began to feel the effects of food price deflation and the intensifying price war launched to stem the flow of shoppers to discounters Aldi and Lidl. 

Despite the total pay decrease, Coupe will receive a 1.75% pay rise this year, boosting his annual salary for the year to next March by £15,750 to £915,750. This is less than King‘s pay of £960,000 the previous year.