interesting reading - 1.8 million payout!!!

Taken from the internet today



Neptune coughs up $1.8m for terminations

Neptune Marine Services coughed up nearly $1.8 million for golden handshakes to executives who left during a shake-up of the struggling offshore services provider.

Figures in the company's annual report show five executives, including former CEO Christian Lange, were given termination payments worth a combined $1.78 million after they resigned or were made redundant during the 2010-11 financial year.

The payouts came in a year when Neptune booked a $143 million loss because of write-downs and restructuring costs, and saw its share price slump to 2c to 3c.

Former technical director Anthony Kerr, who left in April, received the biggest lump sum of $485,000. His entire remuneration for the year was $855,000.

That is about $300,000 more than chief executive Robin King was paid for the 12-month period.

Former group vice president offshore services Mark Lindsay received a $464,000 termination payment after departing in April. Both Mr Kerr and Mr Lindsay had joined Neptune after selling their businesses to the company.

Mr Lange, who left Neptune in November 2010, was given $290,000 as part of an annual total of $1.03 million.

Mr King said in most cases the termination figures were equivalent to the 12-month notice periods of the former executives' salary packages.

In total, Neptune paid executives and directors $6.01 million for 2010-11, compared with a $3.56 million remuneration bill the year before.

Mr King has slashed the number of executive positions since taking the helm as part of changes he said would cut $10 million a year from Neptune's costs.

"We couldn't do it without incurring the pain of closing people's contracts out with whatever contract was in place at the time," he said.

"I really didn't have any choice, we needed to make those changes."

Neptune shareholders have registered substantial protest votes against the company's remuneration reports for the past two years.