SuperGroup freezes pay across the board

Supergroup founder Julian Dunkerton received a massive pay rise when he took his clothing brand SuperDry public last year but salaries of the firm's whole board have been frozen this year.

Dunkerton, who started selling SuperDry hoodies and jackets on a market stall in Cheltenham in the Eighties, earned £59,000 a year before his firm's successful listing on the London Stock Exchange in March.

Once it went public, the 46 year-old's pay rocketed to £400,000, with another £18,000 for medical insurance and a company car.

Dunkerton cashed in shares worth about £80 million at the time SuperGroup went public; he still owns around 30% of the business. In the company's annual report he said: "We have travelled a long way in the past year and achieved a great deal."

SuperGroup - which soon opens a 59,000-square-foot flagship store in Regent Street - has enjoyed enormous success over the past year. Shares have doubled from 500p at the IPO last March to 995.5p today and profit rose 110% to £47 million in its financial year to May. But despite that, SuperGroup's remuneration board agreed at its annual pay review in May that there would be no increase to salaries for directors this year. The company did not say why it had made that decision.

The report also showed Diane Savory, the firm's chief operating officer who worked at the fashion group for 20 years before announcing she was quitting in March, was given a £112,500 pay-off. Meanwhile, SuperGroup's brand designer James Holder and international director Theo Karpathios saw their own pay packets jump from around £45,000 to more than £314,000.