Surging salary lifts Coombe to top five

The figures, released at the pharmaceutical giant's annual general meeting on Monday, showed that the bulk of Coombe's pay increase came from a £730,000 bonus on top of his £490,000 basic salary.

The remuneration of GSK executives was subject to an independent review conducted by Deloitte.

The Big Four firm concluded that there were weaknesses in the link between pay and performance at GSK, that payment for failure was possible, and that stronger alignment with UK best practice was needed. All the issues were addressed.

Coombe is not the highest-paid finance director in Britain. Financial Director's salary survey showed Peter Clarke, FD of Man Group, top with total pay of more than £2m last year.

Frederick Watt of RBoS and Andrew Higginson of Tesco followed on just over £1.5m. Coombe slots in behind Paul Raynor of BAT, who took home almost £1.4m last year.