Costello exit from Nine proves costly with no golden parachute

Peter Costello will walk away with $420,000 worth of Nine Entertainment shares but no entitlements after nearly 11 years on its board – eight of those as chair – after his premature resignation on Sunday evening.

The exit marks a costly two weeks for Costello, who will forfeit $374,000 in annual remuneration as chair of Nine’s board, 10 days after his decade-long tenure ended as chair of the Future Fund, where he took home $254,768 a year.

The former treasurer has departed two high-profile jobs in 10 days.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

Costello’s total pay packet was worth $628,768, placing him in the upper echelons for director pay in Australia. Under Nine’s remuneration arrangements, non-executive directors do not receive entitlement benefits.

The salary for Nine’s chair position, which will be taken up by deputy chair Catherine West, ranks above the median chair salary in Australia, according to data compiled in March by The Australian Financial Review. However, it remains some distance behind the chair’s pay at the likes of Qantas ($750,000) and Telstra ($790,000), which both have appointed new chairs in the past 12 months.

West has been a director at Nine for eight years and deputy chair since September last year. Her remuneration is set to rise by almost $200,000 a year from a total package of $196,000 as a non-executive director. She is also chair of Nine’s people and remuneration committee.

Nine is the owner of this masthead.

Costello informed Nine’s board of his resignation from his Balnarring holiday house on the Mornington Peninsula on Sunday after a board meeting. The board had also met on Friday to discuss the fallout from sexual harassment allegations within the organisation.

On Monday morning, Costello was seen leaving the house alongside his son, Sebastian Costello, a television and radio journalist at Nine.

The Nine board and executive team have declined to comment publicly on the resignation, but some told this masthead that work to repair the relationship between both must now begin.

The move comes after a turbulent few weeks for the media company, culminating on Thursday when video published by The Australian showed Costello appearing to drop his shoulder into News Corp reporter Liam Mendes at Canberra Airport. In the video, Mendes falls to the floor and accuses the former federal treasurer of assault.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with Costello at the launch of Nine’s new Canberra bureau.

Costello had arrived in the nation’s capital for the opening of Nine’s new “super-bureau”, housing a new Nine News studio and fresh offices for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Chief executive Mike Sneesby was a notable absence at the event. He has faced intense scrutiny over his handling of the departure of former Nine news executive Darren Wick, who was accused of drunken, lecherous behaviour.

Costello was left to rub shoulders with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who opened the new bureau.

On Sunday, Costello indicated that he had intended to stand down after the Paris Olympics, which will be broadcast on Nine. He said the board had been supportive, but that they needed a new chair to unite them around a fresh vision.

Senior Nine executives have since told this masthead that Costello’s exit was inevitable after the Canberra Airport footage was published. One noted the video “spoke for itself”, despite Costello’s version of events that Mendes had tripped over an advertising board.

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