Austock reviews remuneration policy

Shareholders call for change

By Kate Kachor
Tue 22 Jul 2008

Austock plans to review remuneration options for its senior executives following concerns raised by company shareholders.

Austock Group (Austock) has agreed to restructure its remuneration policy after shareholders expressed concern over the group's proposed option program.

The listed financial services group informed shareholders in June of plans to secure shareholder approval to issue Austock managing director Tim Boyce with no more than 2.4 million options.

"Following the first Notice of Meeting I received calls from several shareholders concerned about several aspects of our option program, particularly the issue to Tim," Austock chairman Bill Bessemer said.

"In the most part I found these discussions constructive, and as a result Tim has very graciously agreed to, in fact has encouraged, an amendment to the resolution that subsequently added share price benchmarks to the earnings and total shareholder return benchmarks."

The primary concern of company shareholders was the issue of options to Boyce at an exercise price of $0.71 when Austock issued shares at $1.80 only about eight months ago on its listing.

"I can understand this concern from a personal point of view as I sit on the register as largest shareholder and was not a seller at the time of listing," Bessemer said.

"But I have to accept, as do others, that it is certainly a different world at the moment and there is a need more than ever that we keep our business and our people intact."

Austock expect to release the findings of their end of year results in late October.

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