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CEO compensation benchmarked against comparable businesses: Singtel

SINGAPORE — Following backlash online, telco Singtel has issued a statement calling for a “balanced and complete view” of how it remunerates its CEO and senior management.

Singtel's CEO Chua Sock Koong. Photo: Ooi Boon Keong

Singtel's CEO Chua Sock Koong. Photo: Ooi Boon Keong

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SINGAPORE — Following backlash online, telco Singtel has issued a statement calling for a “balanced and complete view” of how it remunerates its CEO and senior management.

“As a large and complex business that operates across the region, our compensation is benchmarked against comparable businesses,” Singtel's chairman Simon Israel said in a statement today (June 23). The company's annual report published yesterday showed that CEO Chua Sock Koong took home S$5.6 million for financial year ended Mar 31, 2015. This consists of S$3.83 million variable bonus and her salary of S$1.68 million, and it is up from S$4.71 million that she earned the previous financial year.

Netizens did not take kindly to the news, with some asking if she deserved it, given that they were not satisfied with their experience as customers.

Singtel said it has a pay-for-performance philosophy that rewards short-term, mid-term and long-term performance. “Short-term performance is measured through a balanced scorecard approach which rates individuals against financial and non-financial KPIs. Mid-term performance is rewarded by a value-sharing bonus which is dependent on the overall economic profit of the group ... This is true measure of value creation for our shareholders and is not linked in any way to the vagaries of the stock market.”

“It is important to note that this bonus can be clawed back if Singtel does not continue to deliver sustainable value,” the telco said. It also said there is a “long-term incentive scheme in the form of performance shares to reinforce the delivery of long-term growth measured by total shareholder returns in relative and absolute terms,” Mr Israel said.

Singtel stated that its total shareholder return for this year's award was 25 per cent compared to 11 per cent for the STI and 12 per cent for the MSCI Asia Pacific Telco index. “This increase in total compensation to the CEO of 11 per cent (19 per cent cash component) reflects the out-performance against various plans and their targets and not profits alone,” Mr Israel added. CHANNEL NEWSASIA

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