PRUDENTIAL boss Tidjane Thiam will earn a pay package worth up to £5.2m this year as he spearheads the biggest takeover in the insurer’s history, it has emerged.

Mr Thiam has been earmarked shares worth a potential £2.7m under a rolling three-year incentive scheme – on top of a £900,000 salary and annual bonus windfall of up to £1.6m.

The insurance giant’s annual report shows that its chief executive, who took on the top job last October, is in line for up to three times his salary in deferred shares from the long-term performance pay plan, which could leave him with stock worth nearly £9m by 2013.

He is entitled to an additional annual bonus worth a maximum of 180% of salary, of which half must be taken in deferred shares.

Details of Mr Thiam’s 2010 pay and bonus deal comes as Pru is embarking on a mammoth £23.4bn takeover of AIG’s Asian arm, AIA – one of the biggest overseas acquisitions ever made by a UK company.

But Pru has to get shareholders on board for a £13.2bn fundraising to finance the deal.

The group is fast-tracking a dual share listing in Hong Kong to widen the net for its record cash-call, which has reportedly met with a lukewarm response from some major investors.

Pru has already allocated Mr Thiam 510,986 shares worth just under £3m at current prices as part of the three-year incentive scheme. To get the maximum payable after a three-year vesting period, he will have to deliver shareholder returns 20% higher than a peer group of insurers for the next three years.