CITY AND SUBURBAN
Brown joins the club, Gas pays the sub, Major gets the bill
CHRISTOPHER FILLIES
British Gas has achieved the impossi- ble. It has made me nostalgic for Sir Denis Hooke. That craggy old gasman could make Saddam Hussein look amenable, but at least you could get four of him for the price of Cedric Brown or of Richard Gior- dano, the two men now doing his job. Mr Giordano gets £450,000 as chairman, non- executive and part-time, and Mr Brown as chief executive has got his 75 per cent bump-up to £475,000. (He is 59, so this will do expensive wonders for his pension.) His colleagues on the Gas board tell us that his salary must be competitive by international standards, though if they meant that, they would open the job to competition and invite Mr Brown to re-apply. What they mean is that they belong to the club of directors whose members find each other indispensable. The membership fees are sky-high but they can charge them to their companies. John Major finds the club's rewards embarrassing, but says that salaries are for shareholders to decide. If only they were! He should adopt my one-clause Companies Bill, to make directors' con- tracts subject to affirmative resolution by shareholders in general meeting. Mr Brown's little number would be up.
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