Hughes and Bailey departed Photon with another $4m between them
Tim Hughes and Matthew Bailey – the architects of Photon Group’s rapid rise who left the organisation shortly before it hit the rails – both received more money from the company in their final year than in any other year.
The details are contained within Photon Group’s annual report which was released just before what was a public holiday in most of Australia.
Hughes, who stepped down as executive chairman, received remuneration in the 2009-2010 financial year amounting to $2.463m. This included a $1.12m termination payout.
As Mumbrella has previously reported, Hughes’ payments from 2004 to 2009 amounted to $2.11m, meaning he received more in 2010 than in the rest of his time at the company put together. According to the report, 41% of the equity element of his remuneration was performance based.
Makes you wonder how he sleeps at night? Probably in a really nice bed with fluffy pillows.
I want to know where the regulators are. To suggest that the previous CEO left because “he didn’t want to move to Sydney” I think is a farce. (edited by Mumbrella for legal reasons) this conveniently happens just befor the rest of the shareholders lose 90% OF THEIR MONEY!
(Edited by Mumbrella for legal reasons) I thought this was meant to be a market of free information?
say goodbye to the $100k my superfund put int on the back of a “rosie future” rights issue at $2.99 a few years ago!
Negotiate in not negotiate out and this proves why you should. It’s also why boards should have tight performance KPI’s in contracts with senior people and KPI’s not just based on share price etc.
Total market 15.75m, that’s amazing when you consider their portfolio of brands and clients.
So the senior execs took home one fifth of the market cap in one year in salary and termination payments – it does seem a little bit rich (and so do they I guess…) .
rotten, rotten, rotten.
Maybe the biggest kicks in the pants are the “divisional heads” and their ridiculus salaries. In a holding company model these jobs are the proverbial t#ts on a bull. These jobs add virtually no value. And Long, managing a division where over 90% of his “reports” are 10,000 miles away? Tosh.
Hi Ches,
In fairness to Jon Wilkins, I suspect that most, if not all, of that salary would be because of his Naked role, rather than the divisional element.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
this whole sorry episode has been one of Australia’s great corporate disgraces but because of the industry and the relatively small size of the company it won’t receive as much exposure as it should. What was even more noxious was the roughly $8m in free ‘carry’ equity given to Tim Hughes and Greg Wooley when the company was first floated.
“Bailey was also fortunate enough to sell his family shares in the company for around $5m just before the share price crashed.”
(Edited by Mumbrella for legal reasons)
“Nigel Long, MD of the strategic intelligence division, received $748,256.”
As if the above aint an oxy-MORON
Makes on feel good to be an AD MAN.
And what news of Siiiimon ? (Edited by Mumbrella for legal reasons)?
My hat goes off to the dedication of the staff at BMF, who despite all this nonsense, keep on cracking one great idea after another. Thank you Guys!
Well I might go in and decide to become a director of a public company. Ask for $2m in salary and options, lose money the next year, give myself a payrise and then lose more money the next year, get another payrise and run like the wind before it all nearly falls apart. Shame on Photon. Pitty there are people there who can make money and make a go of it, and then have it all undone by directors who just can’t simply manage their finances.
Cheers.
Imagine the luck of Bailey getting out just in time…………..MMMMMMMMMM. I smell a rat!!!!!!
long bay sounds like a good place for a holiday. say 10 years.
(Edited by Mumbrella for legal reasons)!
(Edited by Mumbrella for legal reasons)? I bet it was well oiled.
It’s a shame when our business becomes not just about profit and loss, but profit and loss from imaginary bits of paper, ie our business becomes a busines.
Bring it back to good, solid, hard work that works. Remunerate staff properly. Screw floating and having shareholders in the first place – your best assets are your talent.
Mergers and acquisitions rarely produce great creative work, and in the current market, that’s what people are asking for.
The 80’s are dead. Nobody wants the biggest anymore.
They want the best.
Well said Goldmember but they edited it anyway. Truth hurts obviously!!!
The rats have left the boat!!!!!!!!
(Edited by Mumbrella for legal reasons)
Edited for legal reasons. Try babelfish
Hola mis pequeños amigos, (Edited by Mumbrella for legal reasons) Entusiasmo de Mucho, Tony
This is messed up. Most of Photon’s old employees who was made redundant didn’t even get redundancy payment; all the got was 1 month termination notice and not taken annual leave payout. Some of them even had to work out part of their termination. These 2 got what was equivalent to about 2 years of their salary? That’s bullshit.
I agree with Some Dude. Tim I saw you on the ABC the other night rattling the cage with distribution figures on FXJ publications and all those newspapers stuck in an university basement. Perhaps with all this going on with Photon recently, perhaps bringing these opinions to the attention of the regulators would be a better story. There appear to be a lot of upset former employees on these sites (which I could probably understand) however the implications everyone is trying to get attention to is how poorly this outfit has been run at the detriment of shareholders and employees while the playmakers who stuffed it all up run away with big payouts, investors in ruin and what appears to be no accountability. Perhaps Photon just aren’t “big enough” anymore to warrant people getting looked at.
Not to mention someone who has recently resigned from the group who had their salary doubled last year. Poor man, lifes tough. Over $700K + shares. BROTHER I would like to earn what he pays in tax.
An Excerpt from my new Book, called NEXT An Armchair Guide to Your Future
CHAPTER THREE PEOPLE IN THE NEXT
3.4 Goodbye Conspicuous, Hello Considered Consumption.
“The point is, ladies and
gentleman, that greed — for
lack of a better word — is
good. Greed is right. Greed works.
Greed clarifies, cuts
through, and captures the
essence of the
evolutionary spirit.
Greed, in all of its forms –
greed for life, for money,
for love, knowledge — has
marked the upward surge
of mankind.”
Gordon Gekko, Wall St, by Oliver Stone Set in 1985
It’s 20 years since Gordon Gekko was sent to jail, and he’s out and
looking for redemption. The Wall St 11 movie titled “Money Never
Sleeps” tracks the more recent GFC from an insiders perspective.
How time flies. Greed it seems has been outed as not really aiding
“the upward surge of mankind” after all, as Gecko instructed us, and
it’s unabated pursuance would lead to the worst financial crisis since
the Great Depression. About $US 40 trillion in equity value wiped
from the global economy, the nationalization of America’s largest
mortgage brokers, the largest bankruptcy in history; Lehman Brothers,
bailouts and “stimulus” packages around the world costing future
taxpayers trillions of dollars. It promises to be one party where the
hangover will last well into the NEXT. And it appears clear that we may
just need a new kind of self-organizing system of capital than unabated
corrupt capitalist “Greed”.
From the ashes of this global crash it appears a new sensibility is
rising, one that eschews easy credit, greed and avarice for a new more
moderate, sustainable way of living. Enter “A New Kind of Normal”,
where a whole planet has shifted on its over consuming axis and begun
to learn to live with less, and feel better in doing it.
As well as making matching Alligator shoes and luggage harder to
move, it has also moved the business environment, one which is more
moderate, sensible and balanced. The global credit crunch, the crash
in housing, banking, bankrupt countries like Iceland and Greece, and
rising unemployment, has seen a global consumer paradigm shift,
“Conspicuous consumption” being replaced by a sobering new way of
being, that seems to have been rapidly embraced by salaried workers
worldwide and Mogul Billionaires alike.
“spend less, borrow less,
save more, and
eliminate the non essential”
One wonders what this new global organizing system will rise to
replace unchecked and potentially devastating capitalism, maybe it will
be the one that Gene Roddenberry espoused in Star Trek.
Photon guys, you mustn’t have got t the memo ?
PAUL G ROBERTS