A multi-million euro pay-off pledged to PostNL boss Herna Verhagen if the company changed owner is one of the reasons why a takeover offer from Bpost failed in May this year, according to Belgian paper De Tijd.

De Tijd has put together a reconstruction of events surrounding the takeover talks and says both Verhagen and PostNL’s supervisory board were concerned about public opinion because of the pay-off.

The takeover would have given Verhagen a deal worth €3m, twice her annual salary plus a bonus. CFO Jan Bos would have taken home €2.3m.

Golden handshakes are a sensitive issue in the Netherlands, particularly at companies with a public sector link. Senior management thought the pay-off would not only be hard to sell to the public at large, but to PostNL’s own staff, De Tijd said.

Sources told the paper Verhagen had been prepared to turn down the offer but that financial chief Bos refused.

The talks finally collapsed at the end of May when PostNL pulled the plug. A new round of talks in November and December also failed.

PostNL told De Tijd: ‘There was discussion [about the golden handshakes]. But the remuneration committee did not ask those involved to turn them down.’