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Technology Stocks : PCW - Pacific Century CyberWorks Limited -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ms.smartest.person who wrote (2093)	1/5/2002 10:02:01 AM
From: ms.smartest.person	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2248

PCCW directors' pay dwarfs rivals Saturday, January 5, 2002 MATTHEW BROOKER and STEPHEN SEAWRIGHT Pacific Century CyberWorks (PCCW) paid its directors more than three times the next highest-paying company on the Hang Seng Index, a survey of last year's annual reports shows. The telecoms company, controlled by tycoon Richard Li Tzar-kai, rewarded its board with $768 million in share options, salaries, bonuses and other benefits in the year to December 2000, despite being the only company on the index to record a loss. The package accounted for 38.5 per cent of the total remuneration received by all 33 Hang Seng Index companies and represented an increase of more than 5,000 per cent on the previous year. The Post survey looked at all the listed companies' reports for business years ending between December 2000 and June last year. CyberWorks was followed by Hutchison Whampoa - controlled by Mr Li's father, Li Ka-shing - which paid its board $253 million. However, that represented a fall of 32.17 per cent on the previous year, when Hutchison shelled out $373 million - largely in bonuses related to the 1999 sale of its British mobile phone company Orange. Hutchison group managing director Canning Fok Kin-ning picked up more than $206 million that year, making him the highest-paid director in Hong Kong's corporate history. However, Mr Fok's remuneration was eclipsed by two CyberWorks directors in 2000. The top-paid director at CyberWorks - almost certainly deputy chairman Francis Yuen Tin-fan - received more than $283 million, while another director received more than $261 million. A third received more than $140 million. The latter two were believed to be deputy chairman Peter To and executive director Mico Chung Cho-yee, but who received which sum could not be confirmed. Listed companies must detail directors' pay in bands of $500,000 but need not identify recipients. PCCW has 17 directors, 11 of whom are executive directors who manage the company. Assuming he remained the highest-paid director at Hutchison, Mr Fok received $120 million in 2000. Besides reporting a $6.9 billion net loss for the year ending 2000, CyberWorks also produced, by a long way, the worst returns for shareholders of any Hang Seng listed firm - its share price ended the year down 72 per cent. PCCW's $768 million pay to the end of 2000 was more than 8.5 times the sum HSBC Holdings - the largest company in the index by market capitalisation - paid its board, and 68 times more than directors of mainland telecoms firm China Mobile received. China Mobile had revenue of more than $43 billion for 2000, compared with $7.29 billion for CyberWorks. The huge payouts at PCCW provoked anger when they were first disclosed last year. Of PCCW's $768 million payout, $597 million was deemed profit from the exercise of share options. CyberWorks shares hit a high of $26.35 in February 2000 before its takeover of the former Cable & Wireless HKT. They have since plunged more than 91 per cent to $2.275 at yesterday's close. The company last month announced hundreds of lay-offs and a pay freeze for this year. PCCW declined to comment on the Post's survey. Even if the share option element were excluded, the company would still have ranked second in the survey, with a total payout of $171 million. The 2000 share option bonanza will not have been repeated last year. After reaching a year high of $5.15 in April, CyberWorks shares spent much of the year below $2.35, the lowest exercise price of any outstanding options. The survey also showed directors' pay continuing to rise faster than wages generally. Combined directors' pay among index firms rose 63 per cent, despite a 33 per cent fall in combined net profit. Wages for the lowest-paid category of employees - those up to supervisory level - rose by 0.6 per cent in the year to December 2000, and 0.9 per cent in the year to last June, government figures say. Unionist legislator Lee Cheuk-yan attacked the "hypocrisy" of company chiefs who imposed lay-offs and wage cuts while raising their own salaries. "They are gaining from the suffering of ordinary workers," Mr Lee said. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SCMP.com is the premier information resource on Greater China. With a click, you will be able to access information on Business, Markets, Technology and Property in the territory. Bookmark SCMP.com for more insightful and timely updates on Hong Kong, China, Asia and the World. Voted the Best Online newspaper outside the US and brought to you by the South China Morning Post, Hong Kong's premier English language news source. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Published in the South China Morning Post. Copyright © 2002. All rights reserved. scmp.com