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High share payments made to Trinity Mirror executives earlier this year have been condemned by National Union of Journalists (NUJ) members in Wales, but the company denies they are of any current value to the three individuals named.

Following last week's announcement that two weekly newspaper titles are to close, with around 15 jobs threatened overall at Trinity Mirror subsidiary Media Wales, the NUJ has questioned share 'handouts' to executives - worth over £800,000 in total, it claimed.

"It beggars belief that at a time when these directors have been slashing jobs and freezing the pay of those left behind, they have been rewarded so handsomely in this way," said Martin Shipton, NUJ father of chapel at Media Wales.

He said it was unacceptable that the payments had not been publicised when a pay freeze and bonus cut across the company - including directors - was announced in November 2008. "This is an insult to every Trinity Mirror employee, and especially to those whose jobs are on the line," he said.

Responding to the NUJ statement, a Trinity Mirror spokesperson said it was not new information and it had always been publicly available online: "All the information about directors' share awards was publicly announced to the stock exchange and is published on the company's website."

Payments in question, as cited by the NUJ:
  • Sly Bailey, chief executive, was awarded 270,270 Trinity Mirror shares. At the time (April 2009) shares were trading at 28.5p, so the value of the chief executive's handout was £77,026.95. Since then, however, the share price has risen, and when trading closed on Friday it stood at £1.60, so value has risen to £432,432.
  • Vijay Vaghela, finance director, was awarded 123,964 shares. Over the same period they rose in value from £35,329.74 to £198,342.40. Overall, 108,108 shares grew from being worth £30,810.78 to £172,972.80 on Friday.

In its statement, Trinity Mirror said the share awards 'have no value' at present and were provisionally granted:

"[T]he long term share award scheme sees a provisional grant of awards that only 'vest' - or become valuable - if very stringent performance targets over three years are met.

"Since the scheme was first approved by shareholders in 2002, due to these stringent performance targets, none of these share awards have ever vested. At the moment they have no value at all."

The NUJ also claimed that the three directors - Bailey, Vaghela and legal director Paul Vickers - exercised an option to 'buy' more shares on June 29 this year - for no purchase price.

  • Bailey bought 28,898 shares, Vaghela 15,568 shares and Vickers 12,060 shares.

"On the same day, Ms Bailey sold 11,755 of her new shares, picking up £5,995.05. Mr Vaghela received £3,241.56 after selling 6,356 shares, while Mr Vickers pocketed £2,516.85 after selling 4,935 shares," the NUJ said.

In response, Trinity Mirror argued that the shares sold in June were part of the 2007 bonus, which had been deferred until now:

"[P]art of the bonus paid to senior managers is deferred for 12 months and paid in shares. It is the deferred shares from the 2007 bonus that have just been released.

"The only shares that were sold were those that the company required to be sold to pay the PAYE tax liabilities on the value of the shares. None of that money went to the directors and they still hold all the other shares released to them."

NUJ members at Media Wales are

due to ballot for strike action

, after the company did not guarantee there would be no compulsory redundancies.

  • [Update on the Journalism.co.uk Editors' Blog](http://blogs.journalism.co.uk/editors/2009/09/30/trinity-mirror-update-one-weekly-could-be-rescued-in-tm-north-west-and-wales-while-exec-share-row-rumbles-on/)

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Written by
Judith Townend

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