Do fit companies have Fat Cats?

Well, could any top Gary Matthews of Derby Corporation, owners of Raleigh? Hes reportedly on $450,000 p.a. plus bonus and $1m in shares. Nobody could match that you may think.

Think again. Four directors of a certain UK bicycle import business are earning, on average, £274 000 each. Thats what the accounts filed with Companies House says but the figures for the two most senior directors are probably much higher than this because the wages are not shared out equally.

The top earners in the bike trade dont do badly at all.

How about the rest of us? An assistant manager is possibly getting paid about £15k pa (although some are getting far less than this, BikeBiz has seen the pay slips). A good sales rep can command £25k plus benefits such as a company car.

How much does the average owner/manager come away with? Hopefully its £30k and upwards or why bother?

Are we in this trade for the love or the money? Post a message to the bulletin board. State your wage. Anonymously, naturally.

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All this talk of money was inspired by a new report from Plimsoll Publishing, Cycles Top Directors Analysis.

A study of the 147 directors responsible for the Top 44 companies in the UK bike trade reveals that only 33 directors running 13 companies

deserve the accolade of being classed as a top director, says the Plimsoll report.

Based on a combined measure of corporate success and staff salaries, the

analysis places each of the 44 companies as either rich, fit, fighting or

peanuts. 13 Rich companies have the right balance of corporate success and staff salaries. 13 Peanut companies are losing out in corporate success and staff salaries. Seven Fighting companies have yet to see rewards in corporate success despite paying higher than average staff salaries. Eight Fit companies pay below average staff salaries, yet are finding success. (Three were not classed).

The data is all culled from returns filed at Companies House but its useful to see the directors salary data isolated, benchmarked and evaluated.

The top 33 directors of rich companies have been in office long enough to

have a material effect on the financial performance of their companies, says Plimsoll.

Crucially they have been responsible for creating harmony in that, the

company, the directors, the shareholders and the employees are all sharing in the success. According to Plimsoll, these companies are:

a.. Growing faster than their peanut counterparts

b.. Making many times the profit over their fighting competitors

c.. Paying over 2.6% of sales on dividends back to shareholders

d.. Paying staff on average of £25,000 per year

For their ability to get results, the directors themselves also benefit in

the end. They are rewarded by earning an average of £67,000 a year.

Although, the highest paid directors could see this rise, on average, to £134,000. These salary figures are up 4.7 percent from last year.

From the 45 directors of 13 companies classed as peanuts, 37 directors have held office where their responsibility for these companies is indisputable. These companies are currently out of tune and have suffered declines in corporate success. Salaries are also below average for the industry. According to Plimsoll, these companies are:

a.. Declining in sales

b.. Making a slim profits, many are loss making

c.. Paying hardly anything back to shareholders

d.. Paying staff on average of £16,000 per year

In an attempt to turn these peanut companies around, eight directors have been recently appointed to tackle these problems, extrapolates Plimsoll from company returns info. Whilst not to blame for the companys current state, they now have some serious decisions to make.

Also named and analysed in the Plimsoll report are the 31 directors of the 8 fit companies. These are successful, growing companies that have below average salaries. 28 directors in the 7 fighting companies are in the same weak position as the peanut companies, yet arguably they have an added problem in that they are paying above average salaries.

Accordinf to Jennifer Ovington of Plimsoll, directors are responsible for the companies they run and as such there should be a quantitative means of measuring their effectiveness on company performance.

What this analysis hopes to do deliver is hard evidence to evaluate a director’s decisions and results, measuring these against their nearest peers. Lifting the lid on the corporate car park by removing the public image on these companies makes no account of the human and emotional side. In fact, this is precisely the intention of the analysis. In analysing the 147 directors and their 44 companies in the Cycles industry through the 2-paged graphical Plimsoll Model, the individual strengths and

weaknesses of every company are revealed.

The 238-page Cycles Top Directors Analysis costs £449 including next day delivery. Call 01642 257800.

Readers of www.bikebiz.co.uk will receive a 5 percent discount if mentioning this article when ordering.

www.plimsoll.co.uk