Bosses at water giant United Utilities (UU) have seen their bonus payments double the same year the company shed 500 jobs due to “financial pressures”. Meanwhile, as UU prepares the way for investment and lower prices in the North West demanded by industry regulator Ofwat, chief exec Philip Green warned further job losses may be “inevitable”.

CEO Philip Green

Green took home £1.7 million in the last financial year, with half being made up of a £975,000 bonus, up from £471,000 the previous year. Outgoing MD Charlie Cornish – the new chief executive of Manchester Airport Group – doubled his bonus to to £435,000, while former Chief Financial Officer – now of Cable and Wireless Worldwide – saw his bonus double to £603,000, taking home more than £1 million in total.

The bonuses, rising share prices and dividends and all-round backslapping have been justified by the numerous multi-million pound sell-offs made by UU of many of its non-regulated businesses. Since Ofwat is forcing the company to improve its performance – which has never exactly been watertight – while lowering prices, it seems employees are once again to bear the brunt of the profit squeeze.

Bosses are starting to talk again of “performance improvement initiatives” for the future, but have been reluctant to offer a figure on how many jobs may be at risk this time round. No word yet from the unions, who strangely let out little more than a wimper last time as 500 of their colleagues’ jobs – up from the 250 they originally feared – were axed by the management .

Back in May, The Daily Telegraph reported that Green would be standing down by the end of the year. This was later put down to “speculation” by a United Utilities spokesperson, and the CEO himself was keen to tell the Manchester Evening News that he would not be stepping down.

“I am fully engaged in a big agenda, we have achieved a lot over the last four or five years but there is still plenty to do. Will I move on at some point? Absolutely, but it will not be in the short term,” he said.

Of course Green has no reason to leave UU, the Northwest’s only FTSE 100 company, at the moment. One of his shareholder-friendly policies in his four years at United Utilities is that of “targeting real dividend growth of 2 per cent per annum”, 100,000 of which he will receive for free (on top of the £650,000 worth of shares he invested of his own money) when he reaches five years in charge.

United Utilities workers meanwhile are looking nervously over their shoulders, wondering when and where the axe will fall in the next bid to boost those share prices. Maybe they’ll fight a bit harder this time round.

Joe Beech