Aston Martin to accelerate bonuses after struggling to attract top talent
Aston Martin is planning to pay its top bosses more than its fellow FTSE 250 companies after having struggled to attract talent in recent years.
The Warwickshire-headquartered luxury car maker is proposing to increase the bonus opportunities for its chief executive and chief financial officer from 200 per cent to 250 per cent of their salaries.
Aston Martin said that “while this would position annual bonus ahead of UK FTSE 250 practice, it would take our annual bonus policy to median within our identified global luxury peer group and lower quartile against our automotive peers”.
The company admitted to having struggled to recruit talent “due to the lack of competitiveness of our reward packages” under its most recent remuneration policy.
It added that the increased bonus opportunity would “continue to be linked to stretching targets, ensuring maximum payouts are only received for exceptional performance across a range of KPIs [key performance indicators].
The business has pointed out that while the bonus opportunities are being increased, the timeframe in which they are received by the top bosses will remain the same.
Aston Martin is also proposing a new hybrid long-term incentive plan structure which would combine existing performance share awards with new restricted shares “to better support the delivery of our strategy”.
Chief executive Adrian Hallmark joined Aston Martin in September last year from his position as chairman and CEO of luxury car maker Bentley
Aston Martin had previously been run by CEO Amedeo Felisa since 2022 under executive chairman Lawrence Stroll.
Hallmark’s pay packet for his first few months at the business totalled £1m, made up of a pro-rata salary of £333,000 and annual bonus of £600,000 plus benefits and pension.
The annual report comes after City PM reported in February that Aston Martin was planning to cut 170 jobs in a bid to drive down costs.
The plans involve axing five per cent of its global workforce, which it estimates will save around £25m.
At the same time, Aston Martin posted a full-year loss of £289.1m and a three per cent drop in revenue, to £1.58bn.
Debts soared by 43 per cent to £1.16bn in 2024, with shares falling around a third.
Aston Martin losing out to rivals
Writing in the annual report, remuneration chair Anne Stevens said: “While our 2022 policy was designed with good flexibility and has proved broadly fit-for-purpose, we have faced challenges that the proposed 2025 policy aims to address.
“Aston Martin, while a UK-headquartered and FTSE-listed company, is a global business and sources executive talent from global luxury and automotive companies.
“Over 80 per cent of cars we wholesaled in 2024 were to our regions outside of the UK, and our executive directors frequently visit the regions and must navigate regulatory and political challenges across global jurisdictions.
“The committee avoids targeting the median of any single peer group and would not rely on benchmark data for policy changes, instead we take a holistic view of UK and global reward practices.
“While we have been able to secure recent key hires, we have faced challenges during the recruitment process, due to the lack of competitiveness of our reward packages, particularly our incentive opportunities compared to global luxury and automotive peers (where we have recruited talent from).
“A further reference point considered was the history of realised pay at Aston Martin since 2021.
“While outcomes of our incentives over recent years have reflected the ambitious nature of the company and industry-wide challenges and therefore the shareholder experience, the committee is mindful that incentive outcomes have not reflected the significant efforts of the team.
“This has resulted in our executive directors being underpaid relative to other senior leaders at Aston Martin, who receive a portion of their remuneration in restricted shares.
“While incentivising performance remains our priority, we believe we would benefit from a revised incentive approach, to better align the senior team and to reflect practice of our global peers.
“This will help to ensure we can attract, reward and retain the key talent Aston Martin needs to successfully deliver our strategy and drive longer-term value creation for our shareholders.”