Bombardier postpones part of executive pay to 2020 after uproar

Bloomberg

Bombardier Inc. will defer paying more than half of last year’s planned compensation for its six most highly paid executives until 2020 as the planemaker, whose recovery was kick-started by taxpayer funds, bows to widespread indignation in its home province of Quebec.
The deferred amounts will only be payable if Bombardier achieves its performance objectives, Chief Executive Officer Alain Bellemare said in a statement issued Sunday night. Details will be provided in a supplement to Bombardier’s 2017 Management Proxy Circular, which will be filed this week.
Executive payouts at Quebec-based Bombardier have stoked public anger in its home province as the maker of planes and trains boosted 2016 compensation almost 50 percent after receiving $1 billion in taxpayer aid and announcing plans to cut more than 14,000 jobs. Quebec’s main opposition party planned to introduce a motion this week urging Premier Philippe Couillard to formally ask Bombardier’s senior executives to renounce their pay raises for 2016, after Executive Chairman Pierre Beaudoin offered March 31 to forfeit his pay gain.
“Over the past seventy-five years, our fellow citizens have always been by our side,” Bellemare said in the statement. “It is because of this deep relationship that we are sensitive to the public reaction to our executive compensation practices.”
Quebec last year invested $1 billion in Bombardier’s C Series jetliner program, which entered service more than two years late and billions of dollars over budget.

Policy Rethink
Bombardier’s disclosure last week of the pay increases prompted Quebec Finance Minister Carlos Leitao to express shock at the payouts. He also urged the company’s board to rethink the compensation policy, a call that was echoed Sunday by Government House Leader Jean-Marc Fournier.
Ninety-three percent of respondents in a Leger Marketing online poll published on Sunday by the Journal de Montreal said they disagreed with Bombardier’s decision to boost the compensation of senior executives.
Eighty-four percent also said Quebec should review its support for the company. Leger polled 501 Quebec residents Friday and Saturday, and results are considered to be accurate to within 4.4 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.