McDonald’s former CEO Steve Easterbrook to get massive payout after relationship with employee

Despite being fired for his relationship with an employee, Macca’s former CEO will be leaving the company with more than a few million.

The former boss of McDonald’s is in line for a payout worth millions despite being sacked for a fling with an employee.

Steve Easterbrook, 52, broke company rules by having the consensual relationship, which he acknowledged was a mistake, The Sun reports.

McDonald’s has confirmed he is due for around $A974,000 in severance pay — half his annual basic salary — after he left on Friday.

But the fast-food giant has also said he is due for a pro-rata bonus for his work this year, which will be paid out in March 2019.

In 2018, Mr Easterbrook took home a total of $A22.46 million in bonuses.

Steve Easterbrook lost his job over the relationship. Picture: Richard Drew/AP

The former chief executive has also been banned from working for rivals in the fast-food business for two years, and he has also agreed not to make disparaging comments about McDonald’s.

McDonald’s said their former chief executive had agreed to “co-operate with the company following his termination”.

Mr Easterbrook, from the UK, is divorced from ex-wife Susie and has three children.

His brother-in-law Mark Baxter, 55, told the MailOnline: “Looks like Steve has been a naughty boy.

“We heard on Sunday that he had been fired. We don’t know any other details. My wife keeps in contact, but we have not seen him for a while.”

Mr Easterbrook joined McDonald’s in 1993 as a manager in London and worked his way up through the ranks of the company.

Mr Easterbrook worked at McDonalds for more than two decades.

He left to become the boss of Pizza Express in 2011 and then Wagamama before returning to McDonald’s in 2013 after which he became the global boss of the company.

Under his leadership, the company’s shares nearly doubled in value while sales at its US restaurants stagnated.

He was responsible for expanding delivery and mobile payments as well as bringing in digital ordering kiosks.

Scrutiny of executives and their treatment of employees has intensified amid the #MeToo movement, which highlighted sexual harassment in the workplace and abuse of power by male executives.

In June 2018, Intel boss Brian Krzanich resigned after he had a consensual relationship with an employee that breached company policy.

According to Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, Mr Easterbrook’s sacking is sign of the influence of MeToo#.

“Other companies don’t always act on that kind of information or fire their CEO for that, and so it seems like they trying to enforce a pretty strict policy in this situation,” he said.

McDonald’s board of directors decided on Mr Easterbrook’s departure on Friday after conducting a review.

This article originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission