A one-off award cost us more goodwill with investors than it bought in retention

The private equity comparison is the trap. The headline is a multiple of invested capital on an exit that may never happen, with the executive's own money at risk. We now have our consultants convert any such offer into an expected value on stated assumptions. A package described as worth 20 million usually comes out nearer 4 to 6.

A slightly different view. Sometimes the award is right and the mistake is the structure. If yours had vested only on delivery of the two mines the executive was running, with nothing before year three, investors would have been far less hostile, and you would have paid nothing when the executive left.

Agreed on structure, and that is the part I regret most. Time vesting in equal tranches meant half was banked at eighteen months. The written offer rule is going into our committee's terms of reference.