People Telecom cuts CEO's pay
People Telecom CEO John Stanton has seen a drop in his pay this year compared to last year due to not receiving his cash performance bonus.
John Stanton
(Credit:People Telecom)
The CEO received a total of $584,351 this year including equity based pay, less than his total last year of $723,939, according to the company's results announced yesterday.
The downturn in his pay packet was mainly explained by the lack of a short term bonus. Last year he received $135,375 for achieving short term goals for the 2006/2007 year.
Short term bonuses for People Telecom can be granted for performance in areas such as meeting budgeted revenue, business, churn, cost targets, net profit or cash collections.
"My bonus opportunity is based on EBITDA [earnings]," Stanton told ZDNet.com.au, adding while he had an encouraging second half of the year, the overall result in 07/08 didn't qualify him for it.
His senior executives all received some cash as a short term bonus for the year, although none received 100 per cent of the possible performance bonus, Stanton said. Their bonuses were related to operational performance and revenues for their particular area, he said.
The company's revenues went down seven per cent year-on-year from $100.9 million to $93.6 million, with increases in data revenues of seven percent being offset by decreases in fixed voice and mobile revenues of 11 and 15 per cent respectively.
"We had a number of unprofitable areas that we needed to move away from and some restructuring to do," Stanton said, talking about the company's exit from Engin internet telephony and Unwired and iBurst wireless products. "We've moved more into profitability at the expense of revenue."
Although the earnings before interest, tax depreciation and amortisation for the whole year were negative, the company brought the EBITDA for the second half of the year into the black at $758,798.
According to Stanton, this increase was driven by the company renegotiating wholesale arrangements for data, fixed and voice calls.