It's that time of year again. That happy time when the College of Law, a registered charity (not for much longer), is forced to publish its annual accounts and everyone gets to see just how much money the top boys and girls at the esteemed institution are gleefully shoving into their back pockets. Listen kids - those champagne flutes gently chinking? That's your LPC fees.
Readers will remember that we've reported the astonishing salary enjoyed by chief exec Professor Nigel Savage for the past couple of years.
To summarise:
In
2009, he was paid £440,000.
In
2010, he was paid £440,000.
So imagine my genuine surprise when, having downloaded the accounts for 2011 (available
here, accounts fans), it seems like it's been a pretty bad year chez Savage. Rather than running all the way to Coutts with a cheque for the best part of half a million quid, Savage has had to make do with a rather puny £340,000. Shocker.
As usual, the accounts state that remuneration decisions are taken with
the advice of Deloitte, which has previously told us that CoL pay
packets are "
benchmarked" against...against.... Well, we don't really know against
what. I'm guessing Carlos Tevez.
The cupboard is bare
Of course the College isn't the only private titular "university" paying the big bucks. Readers will remember that BPP chieftain and serial dukan dieter Carl Lygo collected
nearly three quarters of a mill recently. Which must make Savage, on the breadline, weep bitter salt tears.
So what's changed at the CoL?
Presumably the "
long-term incentive plan" which for several years enriched the Savage slush fund has come to an end.
Yet before you join the great man in earnest commiseration, and rifle down the back of your sofa for change, consider L'Homme Sauvage's
individual investment into the private equity-led vehicle which will be running the newly-non-charitable College of
Law. That could bring him a return (assuming punchy PE hurdles are hit) which will make half a million look like pocket change. If anyone would like to secretly send in details of his management equity package,
we'd love to see them. Because this is the end of an era. Taken private, we'll never again see how much money management is getting paid.
The boondoggle doesn't stop at the very top, of course. Savage's deputy chief exec has also been paid between £330,000 and £340,000. And the seven strong board are each on £160,000 (and there are in total twenty senior staff members paid over £90,000, compared to only fourteen disclosed this time last year). I reckon it's a good bet that each of the Power Seven will have been given the opportunity to invest in the College of Law (Operations) Limited, or whatever complex PEC/CPEC/Luxembourg/Cayman SPV will be set up to allow management to be "
incentivised". Well at least it can be done in a shamelessly commercial way this time.
**UPDATE**
RollOnFriday cynics have suggested that the shortfall in N. Savage's pay - £100,000 - is also the amount he's thought to have invested in the newco PE structure. At this stage, no links can be drawn. Obviously.