Golden parachute
Shares in telco giant BT dropped by over 20 percent this morning after it announced that it expects quarterly earnings to be down due to disappointing performance from its Global Services division.
BT claims this is the only division it expects to under-perform this quarter and, as a consequence, the Global Services CEO and BT board member François Barrault has walked the plank.
"BT is performing in line with or ahead of expectations in all but one of its divisions, so the results in BT Global Services are particularly disappointing," said BT chief exec Ian Livingston. "We acknowledge that the performance in this part of the group is unsatisfactory and are committed to taking decisive action to rectify the situation."
It's rumoured that Barrault is being further punished for failing at his job by being given a year's salary as a goodbye pressie. It's good to see that the lessons learnt from the finance sector meltdown are really starting to hit home at boardroom level. Surely execs the world over will strive to raise their game now that they know failure to do so might result in a 12 month holiday on full pay.
