CPB staff could see low rewards

Staff at Coley Porter Bell are anticipating lower profit-related pay benefits than in past years, despite what has been billed as a financially successful year.

Instead, staff are understood to have each been awarded a flat company bonus in the region of 500, which will be paid with their March salary. They were informed of the payment last month.

The level of PRP will be announced to staff at the end of March, taking into account company performance until the end of January. Parent group WPP posted a pre-tax profit of 68.1m for the first half of the current financial year, with anecdotal evidence suggesting that CPB performed well.

In November Sam Sampson, European design coordinator at WPP, said that CPB, Sampson Tyrrell Enterprise and Oakley Young were having an “absolutely storming year”.

CPB managing director Amanda Connelly insists that the two payments to staff are “completely unrelated”. She declines to comment on a rumoured payment, in the region of 25 000, given to ex-client services director Richard Murray when he left the group at Christmas, describing any arrangement as “private”. Murray also declines to comment.

The City expected WPP to record profits of 150m, up from 114m, when it announced its 1996 results yesterday.