THE chief executive of one of Hampshire's biggest employers earned nearly £9m in bonuses, it emerged today.

Alan Wilson, the boss of financial services giant Skandia Life, defended the performance-linked payouts, declaring: "I'm not motivated by money."

He is in charge of more than 1,300 people employed in three offices across Southampton. The city is the UK headquarters for the company that also sponsors the world-famous Cowes Week.

Skandia's parent company in Sweden hit the headlines last week after becoming embroiled in that country's biggest corporate scandal in 70 years.

An independent investigation revealed huge bonuses and unauthorised perks received by top management in that country in the late 1990s.

Mr Wilson, who was not connected with any of the allegations, earned £8.7m in bonuses between 1997 and 2000 through incentive schemes put in place by discredited former executives in Sweden. He also has an annual salary of £400,000.

He did not receive a bonus in 2001, and insisted today that he had at no time suspected mismanagement at the parent company.

Skandia Life in the UK is run as a separate organisation to the Swedish operations and no criticism was made of the UK group or its management team.

Southampton-based Mr Wilson has seen Skandia Life's UK assets grow from £1 billion to £15 billion since being at the helm in 1991, and said the bonuses were justified.

He added: "I'm not motivated by money. The bonuses are a large amount of money, but the board put the schemes in place to incentivise people.

"I wouldn't say I felt I deserved (the bonuses) if I hadn't.''

"Shareholders only have a problem if there's been a failure, but we delivered a tremendous amount of value during the period.''

Skandia also hit the headlines in the Daily Echo last month when there was speculation - strongly dismissed - that it was being lined up for a sale or a possible management buy-out. Mr Wilson said: "We're not up for sale, though whether we're disposed of is a matter for the board.''