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Tullow boss one of Irelands top earning CEOs [Ghana News Agency](Ghana News Agency Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Dublin (Ireland), May 9, GNA – Aidan Heavey, the founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Tullow Oil, which has operations in Ghana, earned €12.2 million last year, placing him second on the list of the 10 highest paid Chief Executives in Ireland who earned a total of €67 million in 2013, according to the Sunday Independent. The newspaper reported that Mr Heavey's package consisted of salary, car allowance, profitable share options and conditional share bonuses - "A far cry from his days as a humble Aer Lingus accountant", it added. The Sunday Independent went on: "Bucking rallying market trends, Tullow's share price slid substantially in 2013, but it is a leading global explorer with ongoing major prospects… " The company recently held its Annual General Meeting in London at which some shareholders expressed concern about what they viewed as excessive rewards for Tullow's senior directors. Apart from Mr Heavey's earnings, shareholders were worried about plans to alter Tullow's bonus scheme that will give senior directors up to six times their base salary. Tullow will announce its half-year Trading Statement and Operational Update on July 2, followed by the Half-Year Results on July 30. Restive shareholders in companies quoted on the London Stock Exchange have been challenging bosses over huge boardroom pay. The backlash is being spearheaded by Pensions and Investments Research Consultants (PIRC), the largest independent European provider of corporate governance, proxy voting and corporate social responsibility investment research and engagement advisory services. Its clients include pension funds and fund managers with combined assets of over £1.5 trillion. PIRC publishes yearly shareholder voting guidelines for the various markets that it covers. These guidelines set out clearly PIRC's views on issues such as board structure, remuneration policy and management of social and environmental issues. PIRC said it believed that the guidelines gave both its clients and the companies it analysed a clear understanding of its view of best practice and, by extension, how it was likely to recommend shareholders' vote on particular issues. In the recent 18th edition of the PIRC UK Shareholder Voting Guidelines, shareholders were urged to ensure tougher scrutiny of companies by paying close attention to executive remuneration, among other issues. For instance, the Guidelines advised shareholders to vote against excessive remuneration packages based around three new key assessment measures: CEO bonuses/variable exceeding 200 per cent of CEO fixed salary; the balance of CEO pay levels against Total Shareholder Return (TSR) at publicly listed companies over a five-year period; and alignment of fixed CEO pay against a 20-1 ratio with average employee remuneration elsewhere in the organisation. PIRC said its advice to shareholders around binding votes for forward-looking executive pay policies would centre on disclosure, linkage with performance and quality of contracts. "These changes reflect a general need to improve governance around executive pay levels and will assist institutional shareholders gain the most value for their investors from the recent round of legislative reforms," said PIRC Managing Director Alan MacDougall. "They encourage companies and executives to build stronger, more direct links between long-term performance and long-term rewards when developing remuneration policies", he indicated. GNA // (c) 2014 Ghana News Agency (GNA) Provided by Syndigate.info, an Albawaba.com company |