Burdekin chief to take big pay cut By Robin Bromby 19aug04
GINO Vitale has moved into damage control at gold explorer Burdekin Pacific by taking a pay cut, but he will still be taking home more than people running explorers of comparable size.
Moreover, he is planning to flood the market with new shares to bring in some much needed cash. In the past 10 months Burdekin shares have fallen more than half from their 52-week high of 4.4c.
Burdekin closed yesterday at 1.8c.
Mr Vitale, chief executive of a company that was down to $545,000 in the bank at June 30, said he would now make do on a base salary of $186,000 a year.
This is a reduction from $280,000 in the 2003 year, to which was added $30,000 in director's fees, $9237 in fringe benefits, $29,726 in options and $31,112 in superannuation.
But the new $186,000 is still generous for a company that is capitalised at $5.11 million.
Bob Colville at Barra Resources (market cap $5.06 million) is on a base of $97,500, and Maureen Muggeridge of Paramount Mining (capped at $5.42 million) gets paid $98,000.
Mr Vitale's ally and fellow executive director Susan Field will also take a cut in base salary from $120,000 to $80,000, but in the 2003 year she received $20,000 in director's fees, $9308 in fringe benefits, $9927 worth of options and $12,600 in superannuation.
Mr Vitale and Ms Field have tried to cushion themselves against a third attempt by dissident shareholders to remove them by granting themselves a termination notice period of 12 months.
It is understood that these shareholders are now regrouping for another push against Mr Vitale and Ms Field, and they see the pay cut as a pre-emptive strike to try to blunt complaints about the generosity of the executive packages.
This all comes as Burdekin faces a financial crunch.
It has been spending an unknown part of its $545,000 cash reserve over the past six weeks on its gold exploration program in Fiji.
On February 28 a debt payment of $3.5 million becomes due to London-based Ocean Resources Capital.
Mr Vitale, as chairman and chief executive, is also planning to greatly increase the present 284 million shares on issue.
On August 3 he announced a shareholders' purchase plan, offering each shareholder up to 300,000 shares at 1.6c each with a maximum possible take-up representing a further 85.2 million shares, or $1.36million for Burdekin's cash position.
Now Ms Field has announced that Burdekin has been given a waiver to listing rules by the Australian Stock Exchange to place an additional 100 million shares, with her and Mr Vitale taking up to 2 million of those.
