Moneysupermarket is the gift that keeps on giving for founder Simon Nixon and its star employee, Martin Lewis, the self-proclaimed Money Saving Expert, as both today received bumper payments.
Nixon, who owns 29.5% of price comparison website Moneysupermarket, will collect £8.2 million from the 5.12p-a-share end-of-year dividend.
Lewis gets a divi of almost £900,000 from his 3.2% stake and this is just their latest windfalls after the group paid a 12.92p special divi in July and a half-year divi of 2.16p in September. It means Nixon’s payments totalled £32.3 million over the year while Lewis got £3.5 million. Nixon also sold £200 million of shares in June.
Moneysupermarket can afford the dividends, worth over £100 million, as annual pre-tax profit leapt 36.6% to £43.1 million. Revenues rose 10% to £225.6 million despite what analysts at Jefferies called a “shockingly bad” blip when Moneysupermarket temporarily slumped down Google’s search rankings.
The comparison site, which sells deals on everything from insurance to energy, said it has since regained a “positive” position on Google.
Lewis is set for a further payout from the 2012 sale of his personal finance business Money Saving Expert to Moneysupermarket as nearly a third of the £92.5 million purchase price is dependent on future performance.
Moneysupermarket’s results show it set aside £8 million in the year towards Lewis’s “deferred remuneration” as Money Saving Expert’s profits soared to £13.3 million.
