HSBC paid three top executives more than £9m each last year

The banking giant’s chief executive moved to calm public anger by donating his 4m bonus to charity but it emerged the head of HSBC’s investment banking arm, Stuart Gulliver, was awarded a 9m shares bonus plus a salary of 800,000.

Two other employees also received hefty pay packages of more than 9m, with the bank’s five biggest earners taking home more than 35m in bonuses, albeit in deferred shares.

Chief executive Michael Geoghegan said he would pass his 4m bonus entitlement to charities around the world over the next three years, while chairman Stephen Green has waived his entitlement to bonus shares.

The news came after it emerged that Peter Sands, the boss of fellow UK bank Standard Chartered, would also give his 2009 windfall to good causes.

They faced mounting pressure after the two leading executives at Barclays and the chief executives at Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group decided to forgo their 2009 handouts.

Bumper profits at HSBC’s investment banking division resulted in bonuses for a number of investment bankers.

HSBC will have to pay 234m in tax to the Government.

Mr Green pledged less reliance on bonuses and an increase in basic salaries as a proportion of total remuneration under an overhaul of the bank’s pay policies.

“Remuneration must be firmly tied to sustainable performance and must not reward failure,” he said. “We have witnessed unacceptable distortions – from rewards linked to unsustainable or illusory day one revenues, which encouraged risk-taking; to multi-year guaranteed bonuses with no performance criteria.” The bank has weathered the financial crisis well compared with many rivals and avoided direct taxpayer support, although it tapped shareholders for 12.9bn.

It suffered hefty bad debts as a result of a lending binge during the housing market boom and shed more than 23,000 jobs in 2009 to cut costs as bad debts raced higher.

HSBC took its turn in the bonus spotlight as it announced underlying pre-tax profits of 8.8bn in 2009, up 56 per cent on 2008.

Business Tuesday: Page 1.