It’s over.
As the FT revealed overnight, ITV has finally found a chairman: failed MP former Asda and Energis boss Archie Norman.
And the broadcaster is making the most of Norman’s CV, with a detailed biography in Wednesday’s press release:
Archie Norman is one of Britain’s leading businessmen with a long term track record of business change and value creation. He has led transformations of major British businesses, served on the Boards of several others, and built over time very strong management teams who are now in leading positions in several major British companies. Archie has also served as a Member of Parliament for eight years and worked at the highest level in British politics.
Archie was a member of a three strong team that established and built Kingfisher plc in the 1980s to become Britain’s leading general merchandise retailer. In 1991 he moved to ASDA to lead the turnaround as Chief Executive. Over the subsequent eight years the business was transformed into the second largest supermarket group before being sold to Wal-Mart for an eight times multiple of the starting share price. Latterly, Archie acquired Energis, Britain’s third largest telecoms business, on behalf of the creditor banks and over three years refocused and rebuilt the business before agreeing a sale to Cable and Wireless for double the original enterprise value.
But what’s more interesting than all that guff are the details of Norman’s remuneration package.
Archie Norman’s remuneration will be made up of a combination of fees and shares. He will be paid fees of £300,000 per annum. In addition he has been allocated 1.2 million shares at today’s value. He will receive 400,000 of these shares each year for the next three years.
Fees of £300,000 are hardly excessive by FTSE 100′s standards, but as for the share awards.
Clearly, Norman has some incentive to get the share price up, but it’s disappointing that he does not have any “skin in the game”.
Indeed, the award is something of an asymmetric bet: if the price goes up great, if it doesn’t, well, he won’t have lost any money. Is that really aligning his interests with that of shareholders?
That said, the market has reacted positively to the appointment:
And this news hasn’t hurt either:
Sir James Crosby is also ITV’s Senior Independent Director. He has today announced his intention to resign from the Board. He will stand down on the appointment of a successor to this role.
Now, Norman must turn his attention to finding a chief executive.
Update:
It seems we might have been a little harsh on Norman and that’s because he has given an undertaking to the board of ITV that he will be buying stock out of his own pocket.
The timing and size of the purchase has yet to be determined, but Norman is going to have some ‘skin in the game’ after all and that has to be welcomed.
Related link:
Archie Norman to be new ITV chairman – FT