M&S chief's pay package rose to £7.1m before cyber-attack

The pay package of Marks & Spencer's chief executive jumped to more than £7m just weeks before the cyber-attack that rocked the retailer.

- Lauren Almeida

Stuart Machin received £7.1m for the last financial year, up nearly 40% on the £5.1m he took home a year earlier, according to its annual report. He received the bump thanks to a sharp rise in performance-linked bonuses.

The pay deal relates to the year ending in March, just weeks before it emerged that a cyber-attack had paralysed the company's online operations.

On top of £894,000 of fixed pay and pensions benefit, Machin received £1.6m in bonus linked to the retailer's performance. He also received £4.6m in long-term performance-based bonuses, which he cannot access for at least two more years.

Machin, who became chief executive of M&S in 2022, will also receive a 2% pay rise from July, taking his annual salary to £865,700, as he leads the retailer through the aftermath of the cyber-attack, which began over the Easter weekend.

M&S said yesterday it had "agreed to delay" setting the performance targets for pay in the current financial year in light of the hack.