[miningmx.com] — ANGLO American CEO Cynthia Carroll in 2010 took home less money in pay than the previous year, but her tally of shares increased threefold, with more performance incentives in the pipeline.
Releasing its annual report for 2010 on Monday, Anglo paid Carroll a take-home salary of £1.573m (about R17.8m based on current conversion rates) last year, 2.8% lower than 2009’s £1.62m.
The figure consisted of £1.125m as a basic salary, £411,000 as the cash element of her annual performance bonus, as well as £37,000 for benefits in kind (car allowance, financial and taxation advice, etc).
However, Carroll’s personal balance sheet was looking a lot stronger at the end of 2010; she owned 51,787 shares on December 31 compared to 14,433 on January 1. Based on Tuesday’s share price of £30.50, Carroll’s stake in Anglo would be worth £1.58m (around R17.9m).
She was also standing in line to become the owner of up to another 481,316 shares (worth about £14.6m or R165m at current value) in relation to various performance and long-term incentive schemes.
“Each executive director’s total remuneration consists of salary, annual bonus, long-term incentives and benefits,’ read the report’s explanation of its executive director’s remuneration mix. “An appropriate balance is maintained between fixed and performance-related remuneration and between elements linked to short-term financial performance and those linked to longer-term shareholder value creation.’
The report said directors would receive an inflation-adjusted basic salary only from January 2011, but that the group’s long-term incentive plan fell short following a comparison to FTSE30 companies.
“Whilst sensitive to shareholder concerns about the use of benchmarking in setting remuneration levels, the (remuneration) committee feel it necessary to ensure that incentive levels remain appropriate to attract, retain and incentivise the senior management of a geographically diverse and operationally complex group.’
Subsequently, shareholders would be asked to vote at the group’s annual general meeting in April 2011 to increase the maximum award level of Anglo’s long-term incentive plan (LTIP) for Carroll from 200% of basic salary to 350%.
LTIP awards are based on a shareholder return as well as an operational measure.
During the period under review, Anglo’s operating profit came in at $9.8bn, up 97% from 2009’s $4.9bn. It announced a final dividend of 40 US cents per share, amounting to a total dividend of 65c for the financial year.
The total remuneration of key management, which includes members of the board and executive committee, amounted to $41m during the year, up 5% from 2009.
Among its non-executive directors, chairperson John Parker was paid £650,000.
Nicky Oppenheimer was awarded £88,000, while Fred Phaswana – who retired from the board on January 31 2010 – received £76,000. Ray O’Rourke asked the board to pay his £80,000 fee to a charity.
Anglo employed on average 77,000 South Africans during 2010 (83,000 in 2009) out of a total workforce of 100,000 people.
Despite employing fewer people, the group’s payroll costs increased by 15.9% to $4.5bn.
