Black's office supported by Telegraph cash

THE Telegraph, publisher of the Daily and Sunday Telegraph, paid pounds 813,000 towards the upkeep of the office that Conrad Black, its chairman, maintains at his Canadian company, Hollinger, writes Jason Nisse.

The payment, disclosed in The Telegraph's 1992 accounts, was made in addition to the pounds 148,000 paid to Mr Black last year, a rise of pounds 15,000 on the previous year. Hollinger, which owns 68 per cent of The Telegraph, charges it for two-thirds of the cost of Mr Black's office in Toronto.

The accounts also show that in November Daniel Coulson, The Telegraph's recently appointed vice chairman, was granted share options already worth pounds 230,000. Under the deal Mr Coulson is allowed to buy up to Cdollars 1.5m ( pounds 770,000) of shares in The Telegraph at 85 per cent of the price at which the shares traded at 1 December last year. This was 267p, compared with yesterday's close of 362p.

The Telegraph's remuneration committee has four executive directors and three non-executives. Guidelines set down by the Cadbury report on corporate governance recommend a majority of non-executives.