EIRCOM CHIEF Rex Comb saw the value of his remuneration package increase to Aus$2.09 million (€1.06 million) during the most recent fiscal period, according to new filings in Australia for the troubled investment fund that controls the company.
The value of his remuneration was disclosed in the latest annual report for Babcock Brown Capital (BCM), which on Monday asked the Australian Securities Exchange to immediately halt trading in its shares pending an announcement "as to material matters in relation to capital management".
The fund said it would make the announcement before the Australian markets opened yesterday. However, no statement was made besides publication of its annual report. A spokesman offered no explanation for the delay but said that the announcement would be made before Australian markets opened today. He declined to give any indication as to what might be disclosed in the announcement.
However, there was speculation that it might contain information about a settlement of management fees to be paid to BCM's ultimate parent, investment bank Babcock Brown, whose stewardship of Eircom is set to end in the light of a review of its management arrangement with the fund.
Many of the bank's top executives are no longer involved in the day-to-day stewardship of the fund. Babcock owns 8 per cent of BCM, which has a majority stake in Eircom alongside the 35 per cent held by the worker-controlled Eircom employee share ownership trust (ESOT).
Mr Comb remains the most senior management figure in Eircom and one of the last figures from Babcock still in situ in the company.
Eircom executive chairman Pierre Danon, who said he would stay for five years when joining the telco in mid-2006, signalled his departure last June. The company is likely to select a successor to Mr Danon before the end of this week, possibly tomorrow.
The new chairman may oversee another ownership change of Eircom as BCM's share price and that of Babcock have collapsed in recent months in light of questions over their business model.
BCM's share price when trading was halted - A$1.95½ - implies a market capitalisation of A$330.47 million. Eircom, the fund's prime asset, was acquired at a cost of €2.36 billion and is saddled with debts of €4.26 billion.
The value of Mr Comb's remuneration package in the year to June, which included a salary of A$353,756 and pension payments of A$1.74 million, is not strictly comparable with the payments disclosed in previous BCM filings as the payments were made in the period from July-December 2007.
According to the report, he resigned as a director of the fund "during the 2007 year".
In the year to June 2007, he received a package valued at A$1.85 million. No bonus payments were disclosed in the new report. In the previous year he received a salary of A$822,945, a bonus of A$544,037, non-monetary benefits of A$355,500 and pension payments of A$123,442.
