It's goodbye to Bonfield and £350,000

OUSTED BT chief executive Sir Peter Bonfield is getting a golden goodbye worth almost £350,000, on top of the £1.5m due when he leaves BT this month. The latest bonus, which follows news that a record number of executives got golden handshakes of more than £1m last year, will add to protests about payments to top UK executives.

Bonfield has presided over a 77% decline in the value of the telecoms giant since its peak of 1053 1/4p near the start of 2000. BT rose 11 1/2p to 261p.

He has been given almost 220,000 shares as part of bonuses awarded in 1996 and 1998. Although the gross value of the shares is worth £570,000, he had to pay about £220,000 to cover tax liabilities.

If he had made a better job of running BT, he would have been given an additional 33,000 shares under the 1996 award. He had to deliver returns to shareholders over the last five years that ranked BT in the top 30 of the Footsie. But, because BT was ranked 36, he got only 85% of the possible award.