Jones gained £1m pay-off from BICC

Alan Jones, the chief executive who presided over the shrinking of BICC, received a pay-off of almost £1m when he resigned last year. The payment came on top of the £172,000 bonus he received for selling off most of the group's cable interests.

The figures were revealed in the annual report, which said Mr Jones "resigned" from the board in August, having been chief executive since 1995. It states he was paid £971,000 "in respect of the termination of his contract".

An analyst said: "The term 'resignation' covers a whole spectrum of voluntary arrangements. The BICC share price has underperformed dramatically in recent years, and this [payoff] is a pretty large amount of money." Over Mr Jones' reign BICC shares dropped from over 300p, closing at 73.5p yesterday.

Tim Sharp, BICC spokesman, said the £1m was for the remaining 19 months of his 24-month contract, at £430,000 a year, or £680,000 for 19 months.

The rest of the pay-off was "for loss of benefits" such as the company pension and car.

Mr Sharp said: "The contract was terminated by mutual agreement. Clearly we would not have paid his contract off if he walked away from the job without us wanting him to go."

BICC will take on the name of its construction unit, Balfour Beatty, next month.