Aryzta CEO pay packet declines from €5.5m to €1.6m

The Irish chief executive of Swiss-based food group Aryzta received a compensation package totalling €1.6 million this year, according to the company's accounts.

Aryzta's annual report, published this morning, shows a decline in the salary of Owen Killian from 6.1 million Swiss francs (€5.5 million) last year to 1.6 million Swiss francs (€1.6 million) this year.

Mr Killian was paid a basic salary of 1.27 million Swiss francs (€1.16 million) for the year to the end of July, on top of which he received pension contributions of 192,000 Swiss francs (€175,000), and 305,000 Swiss francs (€279,130) under the company’s long-term incentive plan.

Formed from the merger between Irish food group IAWS and Swiss baker Hiestand, Aryzta began trading in August 2008, when Mr Killian’s role as chief executive of IAWS transformed into chief executive of Aryzta.

The executive management team received total basic salaries of €3.2 million in 2015. The team, which includes Mr Killian, chief financial officer Patrick McEniff, group general counsel Pat Morrissey, chief executive of the Americas John Yamin and Hilliard Lombard, chief executive of Europe and Asia Pacific, also shared long-term incentives of €902,000.

The total compensation package of the team dropped by almost €10 million between 2014 and 2015.

Aryzta awarded its European boss Hilliard Lombard more than €5.5 million in stock options and elevated him to the company’s senior executive team.

The move comes as chief executive Owen Killian battles to halt a slide in investor confidence linked to concerns about its acquisition strategy and the underlying health of its US business. The company’s shares have dropped since January amid concern about its recent acquisition of a 49 per cent stake in French frozen food group Picard for €446 million, deemed expensive by industry standards.

The food group notified the Irish Stock Exchange last week it had awarded Mr Lombard 150,000 shares, worth 40.59 Swiss francs (€37.45) each, equivalent to more than half the entire allocation to senior executives last year.

Non-executive board members were paid a yearly fee of €80,500. Additional compensation for non-executive directors for service on a Board Committee was €7,318.

The frozen bakery specialist, best known here for its Cuisine de France brand, paid broker related fees totalling €2.5 million to Davy Stockbrokers in the year, primarily in connection with its placing of Origin shares.