Funding Circle’s Samir Desai paid £629k in final year as boss
Funding Circle co-founder Samir Desai pocketed £629,000 in his final year as chief executive.
Desai (pictured), who stepped down from the top role at the end of 2021, received a £210,000 salary in 2021 and a £417,000 bonus, according to the business lender’s annual report.
He also received £2,000 in ‘taxable benefits’, the report said, which include private medical cover and life insurance cover, bringing his 2021 total remuneration to £629,000.
Funding Circle announced on 9 September 2021 that Desai would be stepping down after 12 years. He did not receive any payments linked to his resignation, the annual report said. He remains on the board as a non-executive director, “for which he receives the standard fee” of £55,000.
The previous year, Desai received a £210,000 base salary but rejected a £190,000 pay rise that had been recommended by the firm’s remuneration committee due to the “current economic and societal climate”.
Chief financial officer Oliver White was once again the highest-paid director in 2021. He took home a total pay packet of £744,000 last year, including a £319,000 bonus.
Meanwhile, Lisa Jacobs, who succeeded Desai as chief executive, had a base salary of £400,000 as at 1 January 2022, according to the annual report.
She can also earn a bonus of up to 133 per cent of salary, the report said.
“Lisa Jacob’s remuneration arrangements have been set in accordance with the remuneration policy, with her salary and incentive levels in line with agreed salary increase for the previous chief executive, recognising the need to retain and incentivise a highly talented individual in a very competitive market,” the report said. “The committee considered the remuneration arrangements against both internal relativities and market benchmarking. In the course of its role, the committee will continue to review the salary against the appropriate benchmarking and competitive market and may increase where it feels appropriate and justifiable.”
Funding Circle announced in March this year that it was permanently shutting down its retail peer-to-peer lending business, in favour of institutional funding. It had paused its retail offering for two years due to pandemic conditions and its participation in the government’s loan schemes which could not be funded by everyday investors.
In its latest annual results, Funding Circle reported a £64m operating profit for the year ending 31 December 2021, beating its own guidance. By the end of 2021, Funding Circle had more than £4.45bn in loans under management – a 5.8 per cent increase on 2020.