WHEN Sajid Javid became Health and Social Care Secretary in June, a reader of The National suggested we might be interested in looking at his entries in Westminster’s Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
Sure enough, it was an interesting exercise in seeing how the other half tries to live on a ministerial salary of more than £80,000 a year … plus expenses, plus donations and a couple of part-time jobs.
The former Chancellor listed an 80-96 hours a year post as an adviser to JP Morgan Securities, for which he was paid £150,000 per annum, and a similar role with US artificial intelligence software provider C3.ai, which brought him in £151,835 per annum.
We then queried these jobs with Javid’s office and were told that he had quit both posts when he became Health Secretary.
Such entries stay on the register for 12 months, but reader Gregg Brain pointed out that there were extras included in his remuneration – share options with the tech firm.
READ MORE: Tory Health Secretary's links to private health sector revealed
“I think the bigger story is that if he exercised all those share options, then he potentially has millions of pounds in shares in C3.ai, a company which stands to make fantastic profits selling information and data management solutions to the healthcare industry – just as Javid is pushing a privatisation agenda,” he told us.
Javid’s entries in the register show that part of his remuneration from C3.ai was “an option for 666.7 common shares per month (with a current approximate market value of £45,000)”.
Shares in the company were yesterday priced at $35.06 (£26.37) valuing his option for one month at $23,374 (£17,578), or $280,494 (£210,900) a year.
The totals may seem quite modest in the grand scheme of things, but C3.ai’s shares have a 52-week high of $183.90 (£138.33), which would have made his options worth $122,606 (£92,239) a month, or $1.47m (£1.1m) as year.
We contacted the DHSC early yesterday to find out if Javid had exercised his share options.
They passed our query to Javid’s office, who have yet to respond directly.
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