COMPANY NEWS IN BRIEF
Richemont CFO earned R280 million last yearRichemont awarded Chief Financial Officer Burkhart Grund 12.9 million Swiss francs (R280 million) in total compensation last year, making him the highest-paid employee at the luxury-goods conglomerate.
Grund’s total payout included special awards that the company’s compensation committee said reflected exceptional performance, the company disclosed in its annual report Friday.
The CFO’s cash, stock and other awards compare to Chief Executive Officer Jerome Lambert’s total compensation of almost 8 million francs (R172 million).
The company said Grund, who joined Richemont in 2000 and became CFO and a board member in 2017, was awarded an additional payment of €2.3 million (R50 million) in the current year along with additional performance stock units as well as the right to more incentives next year.
“This discretionary award recognises exceptional performance over a number of years which the Committee considered had not been properly reflected in previous remuneration awards,” the head of Richemont’s compensation committee said in the report.-Fin24
Netflix to challenge India's tobacco rules
Streaming giants Netflix, Amazon and Disney privately discussed a possible legal challenge and other ways to stall India's new tobacco warning rules, amid fears they will need to edit millions of hours of existing web content, sources said.
The pushback is the latest headache for streaming giants in India, a top growth market. Companies often face legal cases and police complaints their content sometimes hurt religious sentiment, and many have self-censored content over the years.
As part of India's anti-tobacco drive, the health ministry this week ordered streaming platforms should within three months insert static health warnings during smoking scenes. Also, India wants at least 50 seconds of anti-tobacco disclaimers, including an audio-visual, at the start and in the middle of each program.
In first signs of industry distress, executives of the three global streaming companies, and India's Viacom18 which runs billionaire Mukesh Ambani's JioCinema app, held a closed-door meeting, where Netflix said the rules would hit customer experience and push production houses to block their content in India, according to two sources familiar with the discussions.-Fin24
Nedbank SA starts looking for a new CEO
Nedbank said it had started a process to look for a successor to CEO Mike Brown, who has been in the position since 2010.
Following the appointment of new board chair Daniel Mminele with effect from Friday, the banking group said it would now be looking for a replacement for Brown, who joined the group 30 years ago and has been an executive director since 2004.
The 57-year-old Brown "continues to enjoy the total confidence of shareholders and the board", it said, and will continue in his role until a successor has been chosen and a suitable handover process has been completed.
Nedbank made the announcement on Friday ahead of its annual general meeting, and also provided investors with a trading update for its four months to end-April.
The group said trading conditions had deteriorated and its credit-loss ratio was higher than management's expectations, rising to above the upper end of its 2023 guidance of between 0.8% and 1%.
This reflected the fallout from higher interest rates, load shedding and inflation, the lender said. Nedbank also slashed its 2023 economic growth forecast for SA to 0.2%, from 0.7% previously.-Fin24
Dutch court rejects bid from Steinhoff
Steinhoff International said a Dutch court has rejected a petition from a shareholder grouping seeking the appointment of a restructuring expert. The confirmation hearing for its restructuring plan is set to be heard on 15 June.
The Schutzgemeinschaft der Kapitalanleger (SdK), a private body representing shareholders' rights and interests in Germany and other countries, has vocally opposed Steinhoff's restructuring plan, which could shareholders with nothing.
The SdK filed a request for the Dutch court to appoint a restructuring expert to oversee the plan in the hope of better representing the interests of shareholders.
It also maintains that the restructuring plan wrongly assumes a valuation for Steinhoff that is too low.
Steinhoff's financial creditors voted earlier in May to back a three-year debt repayment holiday in exchange for taking over between 80% and 100% of the group's equity.-Fin24