The highest paid man in UK hospitality

Pubs might get knocked as the less sexy side of hospitality but who cares about being sexy when you are rolling in cash?

Well Punch Taverns's chief executive Giles Thorley certainly doesn't (actually I can't voutch for Thorley's worries about being sexy but in this context I hope he lets it slide). Thorley pulled in a total salary package of £11,276,000 last year. A staggering 1,148 times the average salery of employees in the group which at £9,821 is the second lowest of any FTSE company.

Thorley is only the third highest paid director in the UK behind Bob Diamond Jr at Barclay's (£23m) and Bart Brecht at Reckitt Benckiser, the makers of Cilit Bang (on £22.1m).

While such a wage packet will make the vast majority of us whince (particularly those on the average wage at Punch) poor Rooney Anand at Punch rival Greene King must be wondering where he went wrong. Last year he only scraped together £891,000, less than a 12th of Thorley's package.

While there will be a little of the green-eyed monster in all of us when we look at what Thorley earns - it is worth remembering the old adage: it's not the size that counts but what you do with it. Judging by the reaction it appears the only thing Thorley has done with his wages is generate bad headlines for Punch.