Executive Golden Handshakes

Much is said (and rightly so) about some Unions (mis)management of funds.

The outgoing chief of BHP (after going probably due to several large deals that weren't wise) is leaving with a golden handshake of....


75 million dollars!!!!

That is 1,000 times the average yearly wage.

I bet there won't be much editorialising about that, we'll continue to be told by the top end of town that the problems lie only with the workers.

What do you think, is that a reasonable payout and if so, why?

this is what makes the world go round, the rich get richer & the poor get poorer......................i have no problems with people earning huge money (wish i did) but there should be a balance in life first, firstly there should be money set aside to send down to people who are starving in the world because no human being should have to starve to death, some of this huge money in pay outs should be feeding the starving & in turn the Australian homeless, those struggling etc etc

Dont really have see a issue with it.

If companies are stupid enough to put that in their employment contracts or negotiate the deal with him then its not really his problem.

One thing that really gripes me is people who see the rich in a jealous or angry way. There is always going to be a class system in the world. We are not Russia or a communistic country.....mind you, I do beleive this is changing.

In time, I believe there will be no "middle class".

That money belongs to the shareholders, Southee.

It flows into your superannuation and people's dividends.

It's not a question of being jealous of the rich, it's a question of double standards. BHP and other companies are always complaining about wage rises for workers of 3 or 4 percent, but pay failed executives obscene and unrealistic amounts.

75 MILLION, FFS!

As I said, conservatism - the rich convincing the middle class to blame the poor.

PS. Great to debate with you again, mate

Small price to pay for the impact he had during his tenure. I'd be ok with it if I was a shareholder

I dont know what the average is in your house, but 75 mill is quite a bit more than ten times my income!!!

I now see the CEO of the Commonwealth Bank says we need to cut welfare.

It's OK to pay CEO's $75 million, which would pay the pensions of about 4,000 pensioners for a year, but it's not OK to pay pensions and unemployment benefits.

Be afraid, be very afraid, it's just the start.

One thing that often clouds these sorts of debates is about the type of work i.e. - "I bust my **** out in the mines while the big wigs sit in their comfy office cashing in."

What's forgotten in that debate is that executives are paid relative to the personal risk that they are exposed too. They might be sitting in a comfy office but if the sheizen hits the fan then it's their **** on the line.

What I'm trying to say is I'm not annoyed by the huge pay packets as such, but more so when an executive manages to dodge taking the fall for failure after collecting said huge pay packets for years as compensation for the possibility of such a failure taking place.

I agree Gingernuts, like I said shareholders of BHP got pretty good value from Kloppers, easily more than the $75m he left with. I have no problem with Execs getting big handouts where the have added value but where they have failed they should get nothing, ie Sol Trullieo(sp?)

I agree with the above generally, but when 1 person gets $75 million dollars, then I think it has just got ridiculous.

No CEO is worth that much.

I also note that the banks' margins on home loans is now at record levels. What happened to the 'increased finance costs'?

Different rules for bankers and CEO's.

r&b, you should go into politics my friend

You're kidding, Bayman.

Never been a member of a political party, just don't like injustice and double standards and media moguls pretending to look after the workers.

At least here the debate is friendly and intelligent, so whatever happens, that's democracy and we'll just carry on.

bayman wrote:r&b, you should go into politics my friend

We could run on a joint ticket, Southee

I'm sure that well known Westies man Rob Lucas, would appreciate someone helping out the Liberals

I chat with Rob regularly.

He's got my vote and he's a genuine Westies man. Shuns the limelight and often goes to junior games.

redandblack wrote:We could run on a joint ticket, Southee

Sounds like a plan

I'm with Fanta Pants on this one.

Yes, $75M is a lot of coin, but unless I'm mistaken, I'd expect a reasonable amount of that figure to be share options and incentives that Kloppers had earned by meeting Board KPIs.

The issue is really with the Board setting these incentive targets not the CEO in meeting them I would have thought.

I agree.

To bad they don't offer such generous packages when these big companies force redundancy packages on their staff.

Who is fanta pants?

He's referring to me OTL.

Ahh I see

Kloppers 'really screwed up', but still gets $85m for BHP stint

While perhaps not reaching the heights of destruction that Albanese reached at Rio Tinto, Kloppers should be remembered as one of the worst performing executives in BHP’s history, which was littered with respected business leaders like Ian McLennan and Essington Lewis. For his trouble, Kloppers will leave BHP’s Lonsdale Street headquarters one of Australia’s best ever paid executives.

Kloppers was paid cash salary and cash pensions of $24.8 million. But it certainly didn’t stop there. Kloppers also effectively owns 958,000 performance rights (he owns more, but they won’t all vest), which according to BHP’s own calculations, are worth around $14.5 million. Kloppers also has been handed approximately one million BHP shares and 64,000 deferred shares worth around $40 million. Plus, Kloppers will probably be paid around $6 million in 2013.

That’s a total of about $85 million for five years work and a cavalcade of poor decisions. Glasenberg wasn't joking when he observed Glencore would hope to "get better returns on our investments, we will be able to kick out more cash to our shareholders".

And people think he deserved to be paid that much????????

There can be no conclusion other than the world has finally and officially gone stark raving mad.

Kloppers has overseen a 34.8% drop in BHP profits for the year up to August 2012. BHP have repeatedly held the SA government and the people of this state ( twice now and will head into a third round of community feedback and government negotiations) to ransom over the Olympic Dam project that was to be the biggest economic boost to this state ever and was, I assume ( other than the GFC ) a major part of the goverments spending on infrastructure including the AOR, nRAH, Convention Centre, SAHMRI etc etc.

To be paid and annual salary ( including shares and benefits ) of $25m or more while overseeing the issues noted above and then, and then have the audacity to not only have negotiated but accepted a $75M handshake....

How it would be to sleep at night with no concious.

R&B, I am 100% with you. No one person is worth this amount of money.

Well, I tell a lie, if Bruce Willis or Will Smith had to redirect an asteroid away from Earth that would have wiped out the human race if not for its course being altered. I'd say that is worth $75M.