Record pay for Fairfax bosses as jobs are axed
THE two top executives at Fairfax Media, David Kirk and Brian McCarthy, the architects of 550 jobs cuts, have earned record pay.
THE two top executives at Fairfax Media, David Kirk and Brian McCarthy, the architects of 550 jobs cuts, have earned record pay.
Fairfax chief executive officer Mr Kirk received a total of $3.41 million in salary, bonuses, superannuation and shares for the 2007-08 financial year. This represented a 24 per cent pay rise on the $2.76 million he earned the year before.
Brian McCarthy, the company's Australian boss and the man widely regarded as Fairfax's chief "axe man", also financially prospered amid the redundancies, the company's annual report released yesterday has revealed.
His total remuneration package -- in his first full year at Fairfax -- stood at $2.43 million. This figure was some 70 per cent above the $1.43 million he earned in 2005-06, his final full year at Rural Press, the regional publishing group Fairfax took over in 2007.
News of the executive pay windfall comes after it was revealed in The Australian yesterday that Fairfax planned to increase its planned staff cull at one of its flagship newspapers, The Sydney Morning Herald, from 60 to 70 journalists.
It also comes barely a month after Mr Kirk revealed classified ad revenues were now "leaking out of the bottom of the bucket".
The major boost to Mr Kirk's total remuneration package came from what was described in the annual report as "the fair value of rights to shares issued". In the case of Mr Kirk, this "fair value" jumped from just $117,000 a year ago to $835,000 in the year to June 30.
The jump in the value of Mr Kirk's share rights meant Fairfax's total remuneration bill for its board members blew out by almost a third to more than $5.3 million for 2007-08.
Mr Kirk was not alone in benefiting from share grants. The "fair value of rights to shares" granted to Mr McCarthy came to $280,000, while a number of other Fairfax executives received similar boosts.
Fairfax's annual report notes that as part of its "equity-based incentive scheme", Mr Kirk receives 150 per cent of his total fixed salary "as an allocation of company shares each year".
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