Investor lobby groups slam hefty ‘golden hello’ for new Randstad exec

The two major Dutch investors lobby groups VEB and Eumedion have slammed the big sign-on bonus being given by temps group Randstad to its new chief financial officer, the Telegraaf reported on Tuesday.

Henry Schirmer, a German national now serving with Unilever’s European operations, will replace Robert Jan van de Kraats at the end of March. To welcome him to his new position, the temps agency is giving him a shares package worth €750,000 which is slightly more than his fixed annual salary at Randstad.

If Schirmer stays in his position for five years, the package is sweetened even more because he will then be able to cash it in no matter what his performance as CFO.

VEB

‘We would prefer to see executives receive bonuses on the basis of actual performance,’ said David Tomic, economist at the shareholders lobby group VEB. The VEB is planning to discuss Schirmmer’s shares package with Randstad’s supervisory board.

Rients Abma, chairman of Eumedion, a group which represents institutional investors, said welcome bonuses ‘unfortunately’ are becoming more prevalent. Intertrust and Eyewish which own the spectacles chains Pearle and Eyewish both recently awarded new top executives big stock bonuses.

Randstad shareholders must approve Schirmer’s bonus package at the AGM in late March. A Randstad spokesman said the bonus was to compensate Schirmer for Unilever shares he can no longer collect.