Business

Ferry bosses share €4.6m in share-based payments

Irish Continental Group chief executive Eamonn Rothwell receives €1m in share payments and another €1.5m in options at current values

Senior executives at ferries operator Irish Continental Group shared about €4.6 million in share-based bonuses

Barry J Whyte
Wed Mar 13 2024 - 15:30

Senior executives at ferries operator Irish Continental Group shared about €4.6 million in share-based bonuses, new stock-exchange filings show.

Irish Continental, which owns Irish Ferries, gave chief executive Eamonn Rothwell more than 220,000 shares as part of its performance share plan. They would be worth just over €1 million at the company’s current share price of about €4.60.

Mr Rothwell was also given 317,000 fresh share options under the plan, which will vest to him if he meets certain performance targets over the course of the next three years.

The value of those options depends on where the share price stands when the options vest, but at the current share price they would be worth almost €1.5 million.

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Several other executives were also given share awards under the scheme, the filings show. Andrew Sheen, the managing director of the ferries division, was given just under 100,000 shares, which would be worth €460,000 at the current share price. Of that award, he sold slightly less than 35,000 of the shares, for a total of €161,000.

Declan Freeman, managing director of the container and terminals division, was granted nearly 80,000 shares, worth almost €370,000 at the current share price. Of these, he sold 17,500 shares for €80,000.

He was also awarded 135,000 shares under the performance scheme, which would be worth about €626,000 at the current share price. David Ledwidge, the chief financial office, was also granted 135,500 shares under the scheme.

Last week, the company announced that its revenue had fallen about 2 per cent in 2023 from €585 million to €572 million. Its earnings rose, however, from €127.2 million to €132.6 million.

Company chairman John B McGuckian said at the time that the company had had a strong year in its ferries division, with revenue up from €399.9 million to €412.3 million during the year. That was driven mostly by a rise in passenger revenue from €162.7 million to €181.1 million.

He said the group’s “container and terminal division experienced challenging trading conditions”. Revenue here fell by 12.4 per cent to €194.1 million, while the division’s operating profit fell by nearly 20 per cent to €16.3 million.

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