Anne Richards, who joined Prudential on June 7 as M & G’s chief executive, has been awarded five tranches of notional shares to compensate her for unvested awards when she left Aberdeen Asset Management.

She has been granted an option entitling her to receive cash equal to the market value of the notional shares on the date of exercise, less 5p per share.

Ms Richards, a Prudential board member on a salary of £400,000, will be able to cash in a notional 162,478 shares during five one-month periods from December 2016 to December 2020.

At yesterday’s share price the options are worth £220,726.