The payout - the company's largest ever - was distributed among all the company's 1,200 staff and was equivalent to 20 per cent of the company's pre-tax profit for the year.
Child Base, which owns 38 nurseries across south-east England and has a £30m turnover, is the only private nursery operator to offer its staff this kind of employee share scheme.
Sixty per cent of the company is now owned by Child Base employees and held in a share trust, with staff represented at board level and involved in financial and operational decisions and in deciding how the bonus is distributed.
The annual bonus is usually made up in shares, but this year, for the first time, employees were given the option to take their bonus in cash, equivalent to around 2.5 per cent of salaries, or double the cash value in shares.
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