Chairman gets £500,000 bonus

Struggling British camera retailer Jessops Plc said yesterday executive chairman David Adams was paid a cash bonus of £500,000 for securing new banking facilities for the firm.

The company, which cut 550 jobs and closed 81 stores last year as it tried to fight off collapse, reported in its newly published annual report it had made the one-off payment to Adams -worth around seven per cent of the entire company.

Mr Adams, a former finance director of department store chain House of Fraser, was appointed to Jessops with the task of reviving the ailing business and leading talks with bankers HSBC to secure financing terms for the group.

Nick Bubb, a retail analyst at Pali International, said the payment was fair in that the new facilities prevented the certain collapse of the group.