If you think the recent fuss about executive pay has been a bit overdone, then brace yourself, because in about 18 to 24 months’ time, things could get extremely testy. That’s when we’ll start to see the first signs of the value of long-term incentives (LTIs) awarded to executives during the early days of Covid. The Covid bonus, as it were.

Every so often the subject of executive remuneration rises, Lazarus-like, from the shallows of public consciousness and gets aired amid a fog of great indignation for a few days before settling back just below the surface of that consciousness...