All About Nortel » Compensation

Pushback Time?

Mark Evans — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 13:33:29 +0000

Over the past few months, it has not been easy being a Nortel employee as the company has aggressively restructured operations by slashing costs, shedding thousands of employees, and moving many jobs to lower-cost places such as Mexico, Turkey and China.

For the employees who have stuck around or managed to avoid being made redundant, you have wonder when there comes a point in time when they want to be rewarded for continuing to fight the good fight. Of course, keeping your job is reward enough but the question is whether that’s enough.

This may just be an isolated incident but 150 technicians in Monkstown, Ireland are staging a half-day strike over wage dispute. Terry Collins, a union spokesman, told the BBC that “It is time our members were paid back for all their efforts,” he said, adding the plant has slashed costs by £3m over the past 18 months.

Gven Nortel’s financial challenges and the uncertain economic environment, there may not be a lot of latitude for employees seeking more dough-ray-me but it looks like employees want a little love. The question is how you do it without having it cost you a lot more money.

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A Good Year for Mike Z.

Mark Evans — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 10:14:34 +0000

According to the Ottawa Citizen, Nortel paid CEO Mike Zafirovski a sweet $8.27-million last year, while CFO Peter Currie made $2.25; Richard Lowe (head of carrier operations) $2.19-million and Dion Jonnou (head of North American operations) $2.11-million. Meanwhile, Brandes Investments Partners doubled its stake in Nortel to 10.8% from 5.4% las year.

Ex-Executives Get Packaged

Mark Evans — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 18:46:00 +0000

Two of Nortel’s former long-time executives – Pascal Debon and Brian McFadden – have been sent along with nice severance packages. Debon, who was a "special advisor" will receive a lump sum payment of $295,000 on June 24 and bi-weekly payments of $22,692 through Dec. 28 of 2007 while McFadden, who was chief research officer, will get his base salary for the next two years and 10 weeks of vacation pay and other benefits. Sweet!

Mike Z.’s Sweet Compensation Package

Mark Evans — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 17:01:35 +0000

So Mike Z. gets a $1.2-million annual salary just for showing up. Then, he’s eligible for a bonus worth $1.8-million to $3.6-million if certain performance benchmark are reached. Then, there’s the five million stock options and 2.25 restricted stock options he received last year, which are currently worth nearly $18-million. And if Mike Z. sticks around for five years, he gets a $500,000 a year pension after he turns 60. If that’s doesn’t come across as sweet, Nortel also disclosed it will pay ex-chief legal officer Nick De Roma, who quit last year, a monthly salary of $43,833 until Sept. 2007 as well as giving him 100% annual salary payment as an “incentive award”. And you thought, you were in the wrong line of work! It’s nice to see Nortel has enough money to be throwing around cash – and that doesn’t include the $500M+ it will pay to make those pesky class-action lawsuits go away. For more details on the what’s what, here’s the SEC document

Owens Joins Sprint Board

Mark Evans — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 01:43:20 +0000

It hasn’t take long for ex-Nortel CEO Bill Owens to get back on the board bandwagon. Owens is one of five designees to Sprint’s board that will own its local communications business. You may remember Nortel rewarded Owens – as only Nortel can do – when he resigned many of his directorships to take the CEO position. Imagine that, you get your dream job in the private sector and you’re given $4.5-million to leave behind all those board jobs.