BP piled yet more pressure on to its struggling rival Shell yesterday by unveiling a huge share buy-back programme which could return up to $15bn (£8.26bn) to investors over the next three years.
The oil major said it intended to return all the free cash it generated during that period to shareholders, provided the oil price remained above $20 a barrel. An option to take a cash lump sum of £890,000 boosted Mr Ivell’s total pot.Mr Ivell, 52, is working on a bid for the Premier Lodge hotels business that formed part of S&N Retail.. Sir Brian, who joined Standard Life as chairman last year, will be paid £300,000 for his non-executive chairman’s role at S&N. His total pension pot was worth £7.6m at the end of December, while Mr Ivell’s was worth £1.7m. Last year its shares fell from 477p to 378p: their recovery so far this year to 430.75p has been largely driven by takeover speculation.Mr Froggatt, who joined on a basic salary of £400,000, will earn £630,000 a year going forward. Each of S&N Retail’s seven executive directors received a bonus worth 150 per cent of their base salary, she added.Although the magnitude of the group’s bonus bill may surprise investors, given the slump in the company’s market valuation, S&N’s annual report states that bonuses are calculated based on how its profits compare with its cost of capital, and not how its shares perform.

A bumper payout for Bob Ivell, the former boss of Scottish & Newcastle’s pubs arm, helped tip the brewer’s total bonus bill over the £1m mark in a year when its shares were the worst performers in the FTSE 100. Profit before tax, goodwill and exceptionals plunged 49 per cent to £4.5m.The company, which hires out equipment such as pumps and diggers and derives two thirds of its sales from its Sunbelt business in the US, warned: “The weakness of the US dollar will continue to impact Sunbelt’s profits when reported in sterling.”Evolution Beeson Gregory, the broker, cut its full-year profit forecast to £2m from £4.9m, and also pared back profit estimates for the next financial year to £8m from £10m.. The proceeds from the bonds will be used to draw down £110m of bank debt, leaving these facilities at £310m, expiring in September 2007.While the announcement was welcomed by analysts, they said more attention was focused on a trading update that accompanied the debt news. Ashtead said its pre-tax loss for the nine months to the end of January widened to £20.8m, from £16.4m the previous year.

The positive news, however, was outweighed by a profits warning.
The company saidits banks had decided to extend the maturity of its debt, beyond the current January 2005, after Ashtead agreed to raise £130m through a bond issue. Ashtead, the equipment hire business, yesterday announced a fund-raising to help repair its stretched balance sheet. He said stepping back would not be hard “because I’ve had a long time to prepare for it”.With a 6 per cent stake in the business, he said his “personal preference” would be for Cinven to seek a flotation rather than a trade sale but insisted: “That’s a good number of years away.”Although analysts believe that the outlook has picked up for health club groups, many think that Fitness First will struggle to expand its UK estate from 163 to its target of more than 300.. He will take an undisclosed stake in Fitness First, boosting the 18 per cent already held by the group’s management.Mr Balfour, who made £5m when the group was taken private, will become its deputy chairman from August. But he said the business, which owns 383 clubs in 15 countries, had “great growth opportunities” and its “future prospects interests investors”. Its shares collapsed from a near 500p high in 2002 to Cinven’s 175p-per-share takeout price.Mr Metcalf, who was given options worth £1.3m when Burberry floated, declined to comment on whether the chance of running a private company that might eventually float on the stock market had attracted him to the job. We needed to plan for succession; I’m getting older.”As with a number of other quoted health club casualties, Fitness First paid the price of over-expanding at a time when its pool of potential members was shrinking.