Macquarie tones down executive remuneration model

In the face of continuing market volatility and investor criticism, Macquarie Group has moved to change the remuneration arrangements for its senior executives.

The company announced to the Australian Securities Exchange today that the proposed changes would be subject to shareholder approval at the company's July annual general meeting and would primarily apply to more than 300 of the group's most senior employees - the executive directors, including the chief executive officer, and members of the executive committee.

However, the announcement said while the proposed changes would reflect recent remuneration trends, they would remain "consistent with Macquarie's long-standing approach where staff profit share is linked to profitability and is individually assessed with regard to a variety of factors including contribution to profit, use of capital, funding and risk."

It said the proposals expanded on modifications to remuneration arrangements announced in February last year, which included an increase in the proportion of performance-based profit share deferred and allocated as equity for the chief executive and members of the group executive committee.

The company said the key features of the changes were that profit share paid out in cash would be reduced and the percentage of retained profit share would be increased.

It said for the chief executive, as announced last year, the cash component of profit share would fall from 70 per cent to 45 per cent.

The company said for members of the executive committee, other than the chief executive, the cash component of profit share would fall from 60 per cent to 50 per cent, while for other executive directors the cash component of profit share would fall from 80 per cent to 50 per cent.