THE businessman whose vast personal rewards in the 1980s triggered accusations of boardroom greed has called for bigger pay packages to motivate listed company executives.

Sir Ralph Halpern, who is quitting Britain for a life abroad, urged the City to consider structuring pay packages to deliver bigger rewards for success to stem the drain of talent to unlisted companies. More of Britain plc would be taken private unless attitudes changed, which would be to the detriment of ordinary people who indirectly own listed companies through their pension funds, he said.

The former chairman and chief executive of Burton Group told The Times: “There has to be a culture change in the running of large public companies.

“There’s a tremendous chasm between the rewards of running a private company and the strains and lesser rewards of running a public company. This has to be addressed by people in the City.”

This week Lord Hollick, the outgoing chief executive of United Business Media, disclosed that he was joining Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, the American private equity house.

Sir Ralph’s own rewards were the stuff of City legend. He was one of the first business leaders to be paid more than £1 million. His boardroom colleagues were on three and five-year rolling contracts, which are outlawed today. When he was ousted he was given a £2 million pay-off and a £456,000-a-year pension.

He said that some entrepreneurs in private companies had done “fantastically well”. But bosses of listed companies were not given the same kinds of equity participation arrangements.

Both parts of his broken-up empire have enriched private company investors — the Arcadia chain going to Philip Green and the Debenhams department stores now in the hands of CVC and Texas Pacific.

Sir Ralph, 66, said his only mistake at Burton was that he did not launch his own private bid for the company.

He also suggested that listed company executives did not try as hard as privately backed ones. “Those at the helm of companies that are publicly listed must feel motivated to perform at their best rather than keep so much in reserve.”