Bonus for supermarket bosses

In a year when Woolworths weathered the financial crisis to deliver double-digit profit growth of 12.8 per cent  bringing the company's annual profit to $1.83 billion  Mr Luscombe was rewarded with a $3 million bonus, or 92 per cent of his potential bonus earnings. It was an increase of $385,070 on the year before.

Woolworths' latest annual report, released yesterday, shows that Mr Luscombe's bonus dwarfed his base salary of $2 million, which was itself up $200,766 on last year. His total figure of $8.33 million included $2.62 million in yet-to-be-vested options and performance rights.

But Mr Luscombe fared only slightly better than his rival Richard Goyder, the chief executive of Perth conglomerate Wesfarmers, which is battling to turn around Coles supermarkets. After the controversy of last year's annual meeting, Wesfarmers has frozen executive salaries for this financial year.

According to Wesfarmers's annual report, Mr Goyder was given a $1.1 million bonus for 2008-09, which Wesfarmers said represented less than 30 per cent of his potential bonus earnings.

At $2.97 million, Mr Goyder's base salary was higher than Mr Luscombe's, and his total package of $8.12 million was only marginally lower than his rival's.

Investors rejected Wesfarmers' remuneration report last year, partly on the back of a plan to grant free shares to Mr Goyder on the basis of undisclosed performance targets. Despite the vote, the board granted Mr Goyder 100,000 performance rights.

This year, Wesfarmers disclosed that the "minimum return on equity hurdle" stood at 12.5 per cent per year, and Wesfarmers would have to achieve a 16.5 per cent return on equity over two consecutive years before 2014 for Mr Goyder to earn the maximum incentive of 400,000 shares.