Johnston Press chief executive Ashley Highfield received more than a million pounds in bonuses and “incentives” in 2014, the company’s annual report has revealed.
The report, released today, also shows Ashley, pictured left, has been awarded a 7.5pc pay rise, meaning his salary will stand at more than £430,000 this year.
Of the £1.649m total remuneration awarded to him in 2014, £404,000 came in the form of his basic salary.
The report also revealed JP saved £13.8m in 2014, largely through “headcount reductions” with the number of people working for the company in 2014 decreasing from 3,728 to 3,242 – a drop of 486.
It followed a drop of 622 staff working for the company during 2013 and around 1,300 in 2012.
At the start of 2012 JP had around 5,650 people on its books, meaning its workforce has now decreased by almost 43pc in three years.
This year’s report reveals Ashley was also given £483,000 in annual bonuses, receiving 58.5pc of his salary for his “strong performance” based on the operation of the company, as well as a one-off bonus of 60pc of salary due to JP’s “successfully strengthened balance sheet and capital restructuring as a result of the successful refinancing”.
A further “long-term incentive”, payable three years after his employment with the company began if certain conditions and targets were met, saw him receive a further £645,000.
Pension and benefits payments (including healthcare insurance, car allowance and life assurance) accounted for the rest of his remuneration.
Chief financial officer David King, who received a basic salary of £255,000, compared to £146,000 in 2013, was given a £268,000 bonus based on “performance”.
A message to JP staff from chairman Ian Russell, which has been seen by HTFP, reads: “It is worth noting that Ashley, through the purchase of shares, has invested considerably more into Johnston Press than he has received in cash from all bonuses since joining in 2011, which is testament to his belief in the future success of the business.”
The message also touched on the newsroom of the future project, adding: “Newsroom of the future is a structural change to the way we will organise our newsrooms and also an evolutionary process whereby we will continually develop the way our journalists work so that we can focus on how to fulfil the digital strategy.
“It is already reaping the benefits in producing a better, more focused way of working that is freeing up our journalists to provide improved content for print and to meet the demands of our online audiences.
“The two news team structures, which are at the heart of the changes, have enabled journalists to improve the quality and increase the quantity of contributed content coming in from our communities whilst also allowing reporters more time to focus on the news and issues that are really affecting their communities.”
The report comes a month after the company’s annual results revealed operating profits were up 2.8pc to £55.5m last year, although revenues were down 4.4pc at £265.9m.
The company managed to pay off more than £100m of debt during 2014, with net debt down from £304m at the start of the year to £194m.
The company’s annual general meeting will be held in Edinburgh on 3 June.
Sign up for our free daily email bulletin
Follow HTFP on Twitter
Got a story? Email the Editor at
Looking forward to the comments thread on this one . . .
Report this comment
Before everyone goes bananas let’s just say that this is fair reward for work carried out with zeal, compassion and faultless professionalism to a mass chorus of suited flunkeys’ use of the word “exciting”. Oh, and it is exciting in so many ways. Well done, sir.
Report this comment
“Great……. Super………!”
There’s the way forward. Sack everyone and get a whopping pay rise.
Thank you Ashley and JP for showing us the way..
Report this comment
I really don’t know how these people sleep at night knowing the damage and misery they’ve caused up and down the country with their ruthless drive for profit rounded off with what is, in the circumstances, an obscene personal bonus.
I’m all right Jack, **** you, eh?
Report this comment
Before terms of hatred are thrown arounfd, lets just remind ourselves that we live in a capitalist state. Fat cats are there to get fatter. His employees earning 18k a year are culled to help this privileged person become a wealthy man. It’s called business and we’re stuck with it. Until the TUSC or similar come into power in government, we are all stuck with this corporate unfairness. I just feel deep sadness to JP employees fearing for their mortgages. I honestly do.
Report this comment
And lest we forget – Highfield’s package is the one we KNOW about. There are dozens of other management types in the industry, both at HQ and regional level, continuing to trouser disproportionately large packages when set against performance. And when I say ‘performance’ I mean something other than cost-cutting and damaging portfolios for short term personal gain.
Report this comment
And Ashley’s not finished yet…when JP’ s all over, he’ll be able to rejoin the BBC alongside all the other media men there who just go on and on and on…(Paxman, Humphrys etc etc).
Report this comment
I can’t believe, as a journalist of too many years, that I am going to actually write this hackneyed, cliché beloved of ‘Enraged of Surbiton’, but (here goes) – you really could not make this up!
Report this comment
Considering how much damage Cashley is wreaking on JP papers, the ‘opposition’ should be paying him his bonuses.
Report this comment
Capitalism. It’s ace!
Report this comment
“It is already reaping the benefits in producing a better, more focused way of working that is freeing up our journalists to provide improved content for print….” So if Buckingham Palace announces at 7am that Prince George has a baby sister or brother, the news will be in that day’s JP “evening” papers?
“…..meet the demands of our online audiences” What online audiences?
“….increase the quantity of contributed content coming in from our communities whilst also allowing reporters more time to focus on the news and issues that are really affecting their communities.”…..Why didn’t we think of this years ago? B******s!
Report this comment
Smirking all the way to the bank.
Report this comment
Dear All: I’m totally insensed by this. AH has been trying to drive the print editions of JP papers into the ground so he can push digital. Hundreds of loyal, skilled staff have been sacrificed on the Ashley Altar. But like most things he’s tried ( digitising BBC tapes) it will not work. It’s NOT working and it will never work. You can put all the news you want on the Internet for free but advertising will never match it. It’s like putting a square peg in a round hole. AH is trying to hammer hat peg violently as the system fails and cracks yet he will move on when he finally realises. ..Dear all: I’ve been offered a CEO job in the cupcake industry… It’s time to bring these cakes down so I’m off!!
Report this comment
Italicise the word ‘really’ here and Mr Russell has hit the nail on the head with user-generated content:
“… have enabled journalists to improve the quality and increase the quantity of contributed content coming in from our communities whilst also allowing reporters more time to focus on the news and issues that are really affecting their communities.”
Report this comment
Fantastic news, bravo sir!
Huge windfalls for the grey suits, naff-all for the workers (unless you count redundancy notifications I suppose)
Our newly-created Newsrooms of the Fubar must be buzzing with ‘excitement’ right now. I for one can hardly contain my enthusiasm.
Report this comment
Fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work say I.
Expect big pay rises and bonuses for all surviving JP staff.
Report this comment
It would be nice if, just occasionally, people like Mr Highfield showed some genuine leadership by forgoing such “incentives” in the light of the situation faced by their staff. Pigs, on the other hand, might fly.
Report this comment
Grrrreat…. Sooooper!
Report this comment
‘Headcount reductions’. Real people. Let’s not forget that.
Report this comment
It really does beggar belief…..I have seen so many talented, hard working and downright incredible individuals lost to redundancy over the past few years because of the high and mighty Mr H. But never mind Ash, just make sure you’ve got a fat paycheck…..
Thank God I’m getting out of here!
Report this comment
Interesting to note the email sent to all JP staff referenced just percentage figures, rather than spelling out the actual cash amount the bonus equates to.
Report this comment
Well done, Mr Highfield. You deserve every penny.
Report this comment
Trebles all round for Ashley and his chums and screw the people who actually generate the income eh?
Report this comment
Most of us left at JP are now doing 2/3 people’s jobs. Where’s our bonus?
To be fair, we got a pay rise recently – an extra couple of hundred quid a year. But that’s after years subjected to a pay freeze. Compared to Ashley’s pay, it’s laughable.
We stay put because we’re passionate about print journalism, but the struggle to meet basic living expenses is becoming unbearable. Ever struggled to pay for your weekly big shop Ash? Time to reward the skilled, dedicated troops on the front line.
JP is for the scrap heap unless there’s bottom level investment. If continues to get top heavy it’ll topple very soon.
Report this comment
I had the misfortune to meet the slippery one before the JP talent cull. My instinct was correct.
The grim reaper of JP will laugh all the way to the bank. The rest are mugs.
Report this comment
I am a reporter at one of JP’s worst-hit papers. In 5 years we’ve gone from being a respected and well-run evening paper with several district offices, 15 reporters, a features team photographers, subs, an experienced sports team, a features department and a team of support staff. We’re now a weekly with two reporters based in one office, a couple of managers and a couple of people to ‘curate’ UGC. I feel devastated when I look at what has happened to my paper under Highfield’s tenure.
I support the move to digital and I understand things have to change but I cannot fathom why you would completely destroy a profit-making paper and get rid of wonderfully-talented, enthusiastic, experienced, local staff. How can any person with any conscience let their staff get to the point where their barely paid minimum wage, are struggling to do the jobs of several people and then pay themselves a massive bonus? You’d have to be some kind of sadist. I feel personally insulted by this. He should at least have the guts to explain himself.
Report this comment
Sickening. It says how he hasn’t had a pay rise for three years. Difference is, he is on the best part of £400k. Slightly different when your pay is less than his 7.5% pay rise.
Report this comment
A 7% pay rise on top of his already colossal salary and bonus, whilstus regular joe employees get a 2% pay rise, with the few lucky ones getting 3 or 4%. Absolutely disgusting.
Report this comment
I suppose all JP staff who actually helped him get his 7.5% rise can look forward to their own pay rise next month then? Ah yes, thought not.
Report this comment
Working in newspaper actually sent me slightly left of Karl Marx, it’s a spectacularly bad advert for capitalism.
Exponents of our modern brand of capitalism would have you believe that the big newspapers are competing with each other, refining their products, making them better and more financially desirable.
Anyone who’s not Ray Charles can see that’s not true though. What they instead do is bring people in from other businesses – usually with no experience of the industry – pay them obscenely, like Slay Bailey from AOL with her 10 grand holidays – and charge them with making the company look healthier than it is through short term cuts.
Five years down the line the company won’t be in any decent shape to take advantage of new trends or technologies, staff aren’t trained, buildings aren’t maintained, the prices go up and costs go down.
Instead we achieve ‘success’ by basically all agreeing to tell each other lies. We all pretend we’re doing our job and that everything is heading in the right direction. When it’s over, the axemen take their pay off and go to another company to do their axeman thing.
Report this comment
Close reading of the report shows that Ashley Highfield and David King could have received a bigger bonus if they had improved staff satisfaction by 10 per cent. Readers of these pages will not be surprised to know the improvement found was 0%.
Report this comment
An absolute disgrace whilst stress levels are at their highest ever. Newspaper sales figures of up to 50% decline over the past 5 years are being hidden from advertisers whose response levels are at an all time low and advertising click throughs on cluttered websites are sometimes at zero cpm. Highfield’s answer to lack of inventory? Add more advertising slots at the bottom of the page where nobody looks. Poor value for staff, readers and advertisers, THAT is the ‘perfect storm’ !
Report this comment
You must be kidding……
Report this comment
Some years ago, I saw a retired company boss interviewed on television. He was asked the secret of success in business.
He said: ‘Forget racial, class and religious distinctions. There are only two types of people as far as top businessmen are concerned – those who are there to be sheared, and those who do the shearing.’
That just about sums up capitalism, doesn’t it?
Report this comment
Not surprised at this, I worked for the Sheffield star for 13 years was made redundant in 2012, I was bringing in around £10,000 per month on motors advertising, and only paid £12,500 per year, looking at the Sheffield star now you will be lucky if it is bringing in around £7,000 per month now, where is the logic in getting rid of me, get rid of staff to pay the big wigs more
Report this comment
Does this leech realise that the majority of his reporters are on less than the average wage and after years without an increase got a feeble 2% last year? Then with such paltry rewards he is expecting them to sort out the largely uplanned mess of Newsroom of the F-up, with its deadline-less constant news feed to ‘digital first’ and hinted shift working, on weekly newspaper salaries. I’ve not been a union member for 30 years but I’m beginning to think it would be a wise idea, particularly as so few of his editors, or whatever he calls them now, are prepared to stick up for their staff.
Report this comment
I was appalled to see when my copy of the JP annual report landed on my doormat today that the very attractive cover used a photo of Tour de France riders climbing a steep hill through Haworth, taken not by a Yorkshire Post staffer, but credited to PA.
What an insult to the YP snappers, and this was in the summer of 2014, before the photographic cull began. Shame on you, JP!
Report this comment
If someone is rewarded handsomely for bringing about positive change to a business, plus increased revenue, fair enough. In the case of AH, his bonuses are due to reduction in headcount, year after year, then coming up with a plan to be able to produce titles with remaining staff. But, as bail-out boy has said, you then need to use PA for photos, India for ad design, expensive agencies for in-house branding (or lack of it) etc. All the while the papers are losing focus, yet gaining errors. The Yorkshire Evening Post is still desperately trying to attract more people to become “community corrs.”, to lower the standard further. Enjoy your bonus Ashley: you didn’t earn it – we’ve all paid/are paying for it.
Report this comment
Mr Angrier…. DONT. Join the NUJ. I was a fully paid up member for 30+ years. When it came to JP making staff redundant the union stood idly by, making half-hearted noises AFTER the event. Too little, too late. Basically locking the stable door after the horse had bolted! I have now left the NUJ much to my annoyance as I’m a union man through and through, but when they don’t do anything for under fire members what can you do?
Report this comment
Well said Mr ANGRY2. I was an NUJ member for almost 40 years and can honestly say it was of no benefit.
Report this comment
I know what you mean Mr Angry 2. The lack of a credible union has accelerated decline in the past 15 years. The NUJ in that time has lost all sense of direction and is now more concerned with a desperate and futile hunt for new members to keep it going, instead of doing what it is there to do. I attended a local chapel meeting 12 months ago out ofi interest and could see that the handful of grey cardigans and gullible kids present were just pawns for the local organiser – not the FoC – who had about as much grasp on modern newsrooms as I have on Marxist ideology. In saner times the NUJ top brass would rightfully be facing a revolt from within to sort itself out, but these days nobody cares, inside or out… and that’s half the problem.
Report this comment
It was corporate greed that got JP into a downward spiral in the first place and judging by the obscene amount of money paid to Mr Highfield, nothing has changed. Maybe in a previous life he was a banker…yes I did say banker.
Report this comment
Ŵell at least ‘banker’ sounds like what you mean! What we all mean!, yes greed did drive JP but now there is a crazy crazy digital dream in its place…rather delusion. AH really believes digital is the future for newspapers. While there is a place for digital it will not totally replace them. aH is finding that out the hard way…local advertisers don’t want it and websites don’t really work for local news. He is trying to take on Facebook with his UGC but seems to forget that Facebook is free. Yet he still flogs the same dead digital horse and sacks good journalists and photographers wholesale. Sadly when it all falls apart he will walk into another overpaid job while the rest of us are left to pick up the pieces of our papers and our lives.
Report this comment
The same greed that plummeted JP into £300m of debt is alive and well. Cashley’s £1m is an abomination. It’s the salary of around 50 journalists now in the scrap heap. But what does he care?
Report this comment
Maybe I’ve missed it, but I can’t recall any of the suits who brought JP to its knees every apologising for their misdeeds.
Report this comment
Demotivated makes a good point. Come on Tim Bowdler (CBE, awarded just in the nick of time in 2007 for services to the newspaper industry), Danny Cammiade and John Fry – let’s hear from you. Don’t be shy!
Report this comment