Pay of CC chief cut by 30%

MAURICE PRATT, the chief executive of CC, saw his pay cut by 30 per cent last year as the drinks group’s cider sales were decimated by “atrocious” weather and aggressive price-led competition.

Mr Pratt, the former chief executive of Quinnsworth, received a total pay package worth €1.04 million for the year to the end of February, down from €1.48 million in CC’s previous fiscal year.

The company’s annual report, published on its website yesterday, shows that Mr Pratt was not awarded a performance-related annual bonus for the period in which CC’s operating profit (before one-off items) plummeted 37 per cent, its employee numbers halved and its shares lost two-thirds of their value.

Mr Pratt (52) had received a bonus of €566,000 in the previous year when the company’s Magners cider brand was successfully extended throughout Britain during the warm summer of 2006.

CC established Magners as a drink to be poured into a glass with ice – a new concept for the British marker where cider was traditionally seen as a cheap drink to be consumed out of cans.

However, the strategy enhanced the seasonality of the drink and the “exceptionally wet and cold” weather of summer 2007, combined with reinvigorated competition from Scottish Newcastle, meant CC could not sustain its initial momentum and cider sales fell 11 per cent.

Writing in CC’s annual report, Mr Pratt also cited the introduction of the smoking ban in Britain and weakening consumer spending as factors that combined to make its last fiscal year “extremely challenging”.

No member of CC’s executive board received a performance bonus, and although all basic salaries increased overall remuneration declined. Retired director Brendan McGuinness received a cash payment of €1 million under a long-term incentive plan.

Workers at CC as of February 29th this year numbered 821, down from 1,723 at the same point in 2007. It said at the announcement of its restructuring in November it would cut 150 jobs.