Hodgkinson's golden BAA goodbye
THE new chairman of the Post Office has stepped down from his full-time job at BAA with a whopping £3.42m pension.
Mike Hodgkinson, 59, chief executive of BAA until he retired at the weekend, saw his pension entitlement from the London airports operator rise by £1.2m in the last year on the back of a 33% leap in his pay during 2002-3.
Hodgkinson's earnings were swollen by a £171,000 bonus to £735,000, including his £530,000 basic pay. He is also leaving with shares in BAA worth in excess of £500,000. A further half a million share options in the company are mostly worthless at the current 505p share price.
Hodgkinson has been hired by the Royal Mail to be its senior independent director and chair its Post Office retail subsidiary.
His successor at BAA, Mike Clasper, 50, was paid £599,000 during the year.
BAA said today that passenger numbers rose 2% in May with no-frills travellers offsetting collapse in Far Eastern demand.
