|
| |
Committee Comments on the 2000 Annual Report
By now many of you have seen the Wajax Annual Report for the year 2000.
You will have noticed that the analysis of the pension funds (on pages 45
and 46) is presented on a consolidated basis and includes all of the Company’s
pension plans including defined benefit as well as defined contribution. The language of the analysis is obviously not intended to be
understood by ordinary shareholders or individual pension plan members; it is so
loaded with jargon that only insiders who know the definition of the terms used
are informed enough to decipher it.
We can only assume that the choice of language was deliberate in order to cloud
the issue, or that Wajax management has no interest in the ordinary shareholder
or in the individual pension plan members.
Having said that, a few things in the Report and Notice of Meeting do stand out.
 |
$2.7 million was sucked out of our pension fund and taken to income on the
Company’s books despite the fact that they did not contribute to our defined
benefit plan for the last 16 years! |
|
Despite all the ballyhoo from the Wajax management’s spin doctors
about a defined contribution plan being better for the employees, lo and
behold the senior management (including Doug Ball) are shown as privileged
members of yes, you guessed it, a regular Defined Benefit plan and
a supplementary Defined Benefit plan.
|
|
As the share price languishes at less than $6 per share, as the retained
earnings plummet, as the shareholders take a loss in the year of
$0.62 per share we see the top five Wajax managers take home their
maximum bonus for a job well done (?).
Can we assume that sucking the $2.7 million out of our defined
benefit pension plan and converting it to a DC plan helped them hit target?
We wonder if these gentlemen ever stumbled across the word “ethics”
in business school. |
Salary Bonus
Walter Fox CEO $440,000
$440,000 $880,000
John Hamilton CFO $230,000
$230,000
$460,000
James Burns VP $240,000
$240,000 $480,000
Claude Drolet VP $185,000
$185,000 $370,000
Doug Ball
VP
$170,000
$170,000 $340,000
________
and remember, none of these gentlemen
even contribute their earnings to the executive plan.
| |
|
