Tim Worner at Seven: No bonus but not out of work, yet

Illustration: Rod Clement.

The total absence of a short-term bonus isn’t the only thing Seven West Media boss Tim Worner has in common with Ian Narev.

Just like the Commonwealth Bank boss, Worner’s contract as chief executive will run out midway through next year.

Although, unlike in the CBA case, Worner’s future could still be extended — even after his horror last nine months and the $744 million full-year loss that Seven West has just posted.

As the media storm raged over Worner’s future since his former mistress Amber Harrison went nuclear in December, his billionaire proprietor Kerry Stokes made it known he was backing his man.

But what happens next is about as clear as Barnaby Joyce’s future in Canberra.

“There have been no discussions. That’s a matter for the chairman and the board,” Worner told Margin Call after releasing the media company’s results yesterday.

Worner was appointed for three years starting on July 1, 2013.

As yesterday’s annual report points out, that’s since been extended for two years, which would put Worner in charge until July 1, 2018.

Then what?

The decision will be made by chairman Stokes and his Seven board mates: Kerry’s son Ryan, James Packer’s fixer John Alexander, Stokes’s trusted adviser Peter Gammell, stockbroker David Evans, iiNet founder ­Michael Malone, former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett and the company’s lone female director, Michelle Deaker, the managing partner of venture capital firm OneVentures.

Perhaps to help make his case for an extension, Worner said as it “hasn’t been a stellar year for the company” he had asked not to be considered for a bonus. That reduced his pay by $450,000 to $2.74m.

But with the Harrison legal mess now receding into the past the number that will probably determine Worner’s fate is Seven West’s share price.

That closed yesterday down 2.5 per cent at 77c. Perhaps not out of the woods yet.

Sent packing

Another member of the Seven West Media family whose bonus troubles were revealed in the media company’s annual report was Chris Wharton, who was previously the company’s chief executive over in Western Australia.

After going on “long service leave” last year, Wharton officially “retired” from Kerry Stokes’s empire on April 30.

We noted after his departure that the statement marking the occasion seemed a bit cold.

That sentiment was reinforced in his leaving terms.

Once one of Stokes’s most loved executives, Wharton left with no short-term bonus in his final year.

More telling still was the update on his long-term incentives.

Wharton was awarded none — zero per cent — of his long- term incentives that were due to vest this year “due to business performance during the period”.

Nothing sentimental there. But then with James Packer’s cost-cutter-in-chief John Alexander chairing the Seven West remuneration committee, why expect otherwise?

Show and tell

With impeccable timing, ABC managing director Michelle Guthrie, chairman Justin Milne and his fellow directors and swag of Aunty’s premier talent descended on Parliament House’s Mural Hall last night for the national broadcaster’s annual showcase.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson.

The goodwill summit came as Communications Minister Mitch Fifield continued to wrangle and charm the crossbench in an effort to pass the Turnbull government’s media reform package.

Following the input of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation senators, that package could result in the public disclosure of the salaries of Aunty’s staff who earn more than $200,000, a point of some interest among many of ABC talent and presenters Leigh Sales, Fran Kelly, Antony Green,and Patricia Karvelas, who were among the Aunty contingent in Canberra yesterday.

Passing muster

Another late addition to Mitch Fifield’s media reform package is the requirement that at least two of the ABC’s non-executive directors have “a substantial connection to, or experience in, a rural or regional community through business, industry or community involvement”.

That addition was at the behest of the Nationals Victorian senator Bridget McKenzie.

Bridget McKenzie in her Parliament House office, Canberra.

Originally, it was going to require the directors to “reside” in a regional area.

But as McKenzie knows well following a minor scandal last year when it was revealed she lived in inner-city Melbourne, regional can be a state of mind.

(For what it’s worth, while the Senator stills owns that Elwood property, she’s since rented it out and now rents in Ballarat.)

So how does Milne’s current board stack up?

Well, director Georgie Somerset certainty passes muster. She was born in Glen Innes and now lives on a cattle farm in Queensland.

And there’s two more with regional credentials.

There’s former Seven Group CFO Peter Lewis, who spends much of his time in Byron Bay. Would that pass?

“I’m probably quite comfortable with that,” McKenzie told us, before adding that it would be up to the Communications Minister to make the decision and explain it in a statement to parliament. “I think that’s a fair and reasonable test,” she says.

And if Lewis doesn’t get up, there’s always his fellow ABC director, investment banker Simon Mordant.

When he’s not residing in Sydney, Don Mordant is often found at his property, Casa del Mordant in Umbria, regional Italy.

And just to extend Mordant’s regional chops, he is also the co-owner of a wine made from the surrounding Tuscan vineyards of Montalcino. Would that pass the test?

McKenzie decided that’s one best left for the minister. Probably wise.