Sky-high executive pay is damaging capitalism

Stupidly high executive pay packets jeopardise both the reality and the perception of capitalism, says Merryn Somerset Webb. That’s a very bad thing indeed.

A few weeks ago I interviewed a FTSE 100 CEO. I wasn't, if I'm honest, much taken with him. And when I asked him about his pay, I began to genuinely dislike him.

He had told me at some length about how his company pays all the taxes it should pay. It is important to pay what is due, he said in a saintly kind of a media trained voice. Avoiding tax and then excusing it by saying that "it is within the law" just isn't enough. You can't hide behind committees and legalities.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.