Grid telco chief gets bonus despite write-off

National Grid is to pay the director of its telecommunications business a £100,000 bonus even though the division was responsible for the bulk of the £900m write-off the company announced last month.

Edward Astle has already received £50,000 of the bonus and is expected to receive the other half when the Grid's board approves the business plan drawn up by Mr Astle for the division. After that, he will be eligible for a further unspecified special bonus arrangement.

The write-down plunged the group into a £462m loss for the year to the end of April. More than £750m of the write-down related to Grid's investment in Energis and telecoms networks in Latin America and Poland.

Details of the payment to Mr Astle, who joined Grid in September, are contained in the listing particulars relating to its proposed £15bn merger with Lattice, the owner of the gas pipeline operator Transco.

The documents also showed that the three top executives at Lattice have agreed to forego their entitlement to a £3m collective pay-off by rolling over their share options into the new merged company. A Grid spokesman said Mr Astle, a former Cable & Wireless executive, had received the bonus payment for carrying out a strategic review of the telecommunications division.

This resulted in Grid's decision last month to quit telecoms altogether with the exception of its telecom masts hosting businesses. It is in the process of finding a strategic buyer for the biggest of its Latin American interests, a 50 per cent stake in the Brazilian long-distance telephone network Intelig.

The listing particulars also show that Roger Urwin, who will be chief executive of the merged company National Grid Transco, received a £100,000 pay increase from 1 April, taking his basic salary to £600,000. Sir John Parker, who will become non-executive chairman, will receive a salary of £225,000.

According to the listing particulars, the total pay of National Grid Transco's directors will be £6.2m for the year ending 31 March 2003. However, its remuneration policy will be reviewed in light of the extra responsibilities that some of its executives will take on.

Fees associated with the merger are estimated at £74m and the listing particulars show that both companies' pension schemes are in surplus.