DR Tony O'Reilly, chairman of Heinz, received more than £40 million sterling in salary and share options from the multi-national food group last year, a new report reveals. He is named in the magazine Business Week as the fifth-highest corporate earner in America in its report on executive pay.

But the remuneration of Dr O'Reilly (right) is modest compared with America's highest earner, finance chief Mr Laurence Coss, who received a staggering £64 million.

Mr Coss, the chief executive of US finance house Green Tree Financial, clocked up £7,000 an hour during 1996, including weekends and holidays.

The article, published in one of America's most respected business journals, shows that executive pay in Britain has a long way to go to catch up with that enjoyed by top American executives.

Average pay for an American chief executive shot up by 54 per cent to £3,568,000, a figure which makes British fat cats look positively anaemic.

And Dr O'Reilly's pay packet will have included a large tranche of share options, which have become more valuable as the main American stock market, the Dow Jones, has climbed ever higher over the last year.

He is a staunch advocate of share options for top executives, and told Business Week: "There can be no more honourable or fairer way" of rewarding company heads.

It also reflects how much the company has grown since he joined in 1979, when it had a market value of £555 million.

Heinz is now capitalised at around £9.87 billion, and Dr O'Reilly is its largest individual shareholder, with stock worth around £179 million.