London: Karam Butalia, former global head of private equity at Standard Chartered, took home a 16 million pound pay packet before leaving the bank last year, making him the best-paid British banker, a newspaper reported on Sunday.
Butalia, 55, received about four times as much as Standard Chartered Chief Executive Peter Sands, the Sunday Times reported.
Butalia, who is based in Singapore, is believed to have secured a string of lucrative private-equity deals during his six years at the bank.
Butalia, who took an MBA at Hull University in Britain in 1994-95, bought stakes in one of China's biggest construction firms, an Indian engineering company, as well as China's biggest pen maker, the Sunday Times said.
Britain's best-paid banker before the credit crunch was Bob Diamond, head of Barclays Capital, who was earning 21 million pounds in 2007 but gave up his bonus this year, taking a salary of 250,000 pounds.