Lupus faces pay backlash
LUPUS shareholders were up in arms last night after it emerged that the group’s temporary chief executive was on a much higher pay package than they had been led to believe.
Turnaround specialist Keith Taylor was parachuted into the group as chief executive after chairman Greg Hutchings, a former Tomkins boss, was ousted in July.
But yesterday shareholders said they were “incensed” after learning that Taylor would be in line for a £250,000 bonus if he succeeds with turning around the building materials group. The bonus is on top of his daily rate of £2,750.
Shareholders at the company’s annual meeting in July demanded to know the details of Taylor’s pay package, but chairman Michael Jackson only said that the chief executive package was “broadly similar” to that received by Hutchings – a figure of “around £500,000”.
However, it has now been revealed that the pay package is almost double that. Hutchings has requisitioned an extraordinary general meeting calling for the removal of Jackson, Taylor and finance director Paul Felton-Smith, and his reinstatement at the helm of the group, on 30 October.
One shareholder yesterday told City PM: “The new board has been appointed by banks – in the interest of the banks – not shareholders – and there are many private shareholders who feel aggrieved.”