Zegona, owner of Vodafone Spain, pays its president a bonus of 149 million euros.
The two executives of Zegona Communications, the London Stock Exchange-listed owner of Vodafone Spain, pocketed a £193.9 million (€223.4 million) incentive last year, just as the acquisition of Vodafone's Spanish business closed and the share price of the company that made the purchase soared. Almost all of this amount corresponds to shares.
Zegona 's business is exclusively Vodafone's business in Spain. The company explains in its annual report that it has an incentive scheme that seeks to align the interests of its executives with those of its shareholders.
O'Hare was finance director of the superstore Tesco between 2005 and 2009 and of Virgin Media from 2009 to 2013. An aerospace engineer, the executive has been at the head of Zegona since 2015, with which he bought the Asturian company Telecable , which was sold to Euskaltel.
Specifically, the plan involves distributing a compensation payment equal to 15% of the company's appreciation over a given period. In the case analyzed, the reference price is the share price on October 14, 2024, with an average of 3.57 pounds. This represents a capitalization of 2.515 billion pounds, or 1.457 billion pounds more than at the reference point.
The scheme stipulates that 15% of this increase must be shared among a group of executives and managers. Zegona 's chairman and CEO, Eamonn O'Hare, is entitled to 59%, equivalent to a £129.3 million (€149.1 million) incentive, one of the highest ever recorded for a London-listed company. This amount is in addition to the £1.45 million split between ordinary fixed and variable remuneration, more than double the 2023 figure.
Chief operating officer Robert Samuelson was allocated 30%, with £64.6 million (€74.5 million), to which must be added the ordinary payment (£1.1 million in 2024).
Distribution of the incentiveThere is also a group of executives, which Zegona 's report does not specify, who will receive the remaining 11% of the plan, with 24.6 million pounds (27.4 million euros).
The incentive was calculated with a capitalization of 2.515 billion pounds, but it should be noted that the value has rallied on the London Stock Exchange, where, at 8.3 pounds per share, the company was valued yesterday at 6.301 billion pounds (7.266 billion euros), a new high.
This amount far exceeds the €5 billion Zegona paid for Vodafone Spain —the transaction closed in May 2024—of which €4.2 billion was debt.
Comparison with TelefónicaBy comparison, Telefónica closed yesterday with a market capitalization of €25.833 billion. Its chairman, Marc Murtra, advocated mergers between local telecommunications groups at the company's general meeting on April 10th , as a way to achieve greater synergies.
In its accounting filing with the London Stock Exchange for the 15-month period ending March 31, Zegona explains that it had revenues of €3.015 billion and a net loss of €439 million. Vodafone, for its part, had revenues of €3.629 billion between April 2024 and March 2025, with a loss of €82 million.
Zegona effectively took control of Vodafone Spain on June 1, 2024, which explains why the owner has lower revenues than the subsidiary. Zegona has reduced the workforce at its Spanish subsidiary by 28% as part of its adjustment plan.
ShareholdersO'Hare was Zegona's largest individual shareholder (4.65%) on June 30. The remaining shareholders, with a share exceeding 3%, are EJLSHM—the vehicle through which the refinanced loan was channeled to purchase Vodafone Spain—with 68.9%, Thornburg (4.5%), and Fidelity (4.19%).
The compensation of Zegona's top executives is unusual among British listed companies. The average salary of a FTSE 100 CEO, the benchmark index for the British capital, is £4.2 million per year. Off-market, Denise Coates earned £158 million in 2024 as an executive at the betting firm Bet365 .
Expansion
