The boss of Burberry could earn up to £12.2m after the luxury British brand introduced a new bonus scheme, while its annual report also revealed the company has scaled back its climate ambitions.
Joshua Schulman, a former chief executive of the US fashion brand Coach who was hired in July 2024 to help revive Burberry, was paid £4m in the year to March, up from £2.5m for his first nine months in the job.
The latest year’s pay package included £1.2m in basic pay, a £2.3m annual cash bonus and £299,000 in relocation assistance after a move from New York, according to Burberry’s annual report published on Thursday.
The company made pre-tax profits of £49m in the year to 28 March, compared with a loss of £66m in the previous 12 months, as it cut £80m of annual costs, trimmed store numbers and won back Chinese and North American shoppers under Schulman’s Burberry Forward campaign.
However, Burberry has also become the latest business to push back its deadline to become carbon neutral by a decade to 2050. The annual report says: “We have refined our climate targets to reflect a greater understanding of [greenhouse gas] emissions across our value chain”.
It is the latest change from a strategy set by Schulman’s predecessor, who five years ago pledged to have a net positive impact on the climate by 2040 and to reduce indirect greenhouse gas emissions by 46% by the end of the decade.
There have been similar moves to scale back efforts by other big companies, including Unilever and BP.
Burberry’s report states: “We believe our revised targets reflect a pragmatic response to external factors, while allowing us to maintain a level of ambition in line with our assessment of climate change as a principal risk facing our business.”
Burberry sales remained flat year on year at £2.4bn once the effect of exchange rates was taken into account, as the brand moved away from discounting and prioritised sales of core products, including trench coats and scarves.
The pay package of Kate Ferry, the finance director of Burberry, has also more than doubled to £2.5m, up from £904,000 the previous year, and included a £1.3m cash bonus and £457,000 long-term bonus. Ferry could earn £5.6m this year if she hits all targets and Burberry’s share price increases by 50%.
From July, Schulman’s basic pay will increase by 3% to £1.24m and he could also earn a new long-term share bonus worth up to 300% of salary if he meets performance targets that include increasing Burberry’s annual revenues to £3.1bn by 2029.
That award will come on top of an existing share bonus that is being slightly reduced from a maximum of 162.5% of salary to 150%, if shareholders approve the new scheme at the company’s annual meeting in July.
Burberry’s report said Schulman’s target pay was £6.4m, which would put him at the upper end of FTSE 100 executive pay rates but the lower end of global peers. That figure could rise to £12.2m in three years based on the pay policy introduced this year if he hits the most “stretching performance targets” and the share price increases by 50%. He could earn even more if his basic salary is increased further.
In the annual report, Danuta Gray, the chair of Burberry’s remuneration committee, said Schulman’s reward scheme had “been chosen so as to be appropriately incentivising” and aimed to retain him by improving his pay position relative to those heading the brand’s luxury peers.
The report added that the scheme was also intended to be “reasonable”; Burberry had “not sought to match USA pay levels” and the payout was also subject to “the delivery of stretching performance targets”.
Schulman became the chief executive of Burberry in July 2024, replacing Jonathan Akeroyd.