The Straits Times, on 25 March 2009, reported that Singapore-listed company Capital Land had rewarded its president and chief executive with a S$20.52 million bonus in 2007. Mr Liew Mun Leong, “a civil engineer who spent 22 years as a civil servant before taking the corporate world by storm”, was rewarded “for helping the property developer achieve a record profit of S$2.76 billion that year”.
The bonus is believed to be a record for any executive at a Singapore listed company.
The Straits Times quoted Mr Liew, who held a press conference at Capital Tower on Tuesday, as having said:
“Although the sum is the highest, it is accrued… so it’s put into a bank account and you are only allowed to take one-third out. If you ask if it’s the highest, if you take one-third out, then it’s not.”
Mr Liew’s base pay was $1.15 million in 2007 and $1.19 million in 2008.
For 2008, his bonus was a much smaller $2.98 million.
What’re your thoughts on the $20.52 million bonus paid out to Mr Liew in 2007?
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What is the issue here TOC? Why can’t a private sector CEO earn as much as he wants or can?
This seems like peanuts compared to Wall street man.
I hope sour graping is not encouraged. No one owes us a living. If they can , they can. Lets not gripe.
ps: I only talk about Private sector. ;)
The PAP ministers soon start to compare and lobby for same benefits when economy recover, this is part of MSM’s trick.
It doesn’t matter private or gov companies. All of them are paid too much.
Basically, i think he did nothing much but just ride on the wave of property boom to “help” captial land earn big profits.
Piece of crap. Corrupt.
like usa those exectives need to return the bonuses they recieve.
for singapore case do exectives also need to return the bonuses?
Shopping malls rentals remain high despite recession times, and so
do our food prices, childcare fees, etc. Many retail businesses fail
because of the high rentals charged by landlords.
Maybe that’s why landlords can continue to show good profits on their balance sheets and get paid sky-high bonuses. And we consumers have to
pay high prices for our food and other basic daily neccessities.
If you’re poor, just don’t shop at expensive shopping centres, eat cheap $2 noodles. He’s in the private sector, we didn’t fund him by taxes, no issue here.
This is the private sector. It is up to the shareholders of CapitalLand to hold an EOGM to veto the bonus if the shareholders (owners) object to it.
As for the ministerial salaries, why is it that the shareholders (citizens) of Singapore cannot hold an EOGM to veto their pay-rise and bonuses? E.g. the 8 month bonus of CDC employees, should be open for the residents of the CDC to decide if it is justified.
1) alternate distractor smuto facade on March 26th, 2009 9.34 am
ps: I only talk about Private sector.
Really ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Is that Catus-Lend really a private sector. I heard that Timisek holds abt 40%. Perhaps “alternate distractor” may want to enlighten whether any poxy floating around to make it more than 50%. guessing lah. anyway, corporate world lah. remember thailand misadventure.
Oops, maybe the head of “”alternate distractor” may not get too distracted with this.
http://www.capitaland.com/export/htmlgalleries/AnnualReport2007/flash/other_statistics.htm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barry-schwartz/why-almost-all-bonuses-ar_b_177343.html
no matter private or public sector.
no matter rich or poor.
it is insensitive.
people who sell expensive prawns and do not show the price do not blame them.
because the price is to cheat people who got too much to spend.
It’s very easy to run Capitaland. When times are good, just buy and buy assets, using funding from Temasek or DBS. The main contraint that property companies face is funding, and Capitaland does not face this contraint. And when times are good, profit will definitely ballon, as in the case of 2007. The profit in 2007 for Capitaland was largely due to the result of re-valuation of properties; since the property values were not realised, much of the $2.67 billion was just paper profits. Yet the bonus of the CEO was calculated largely based on paper profits.
The danger of allowing an executive to run a large GLC like Capiland (which face little financial contraint compared to other property companies) is that there is every incentive for CEO of Capitaland to buy and buy, as was demonstrated in the purchase of Farrer Court at astronomical prices. He is not taking risk with his own money, and may thus be incentivsed to make as many bets as possible, since his bonus is tied to profits.
On the other hand, when times are bad, the CEO can say dont blames us, everyone else is not doing well.
It’s case of heads I win, tail you lose.
8) To alternate distractor smuto facade on March 26th, 2009 10.57 am
Thanks for your concern. Doon woly.
The FACT is , as #7 rightly said,
“This is the private sector. It is up to the shareholders of CapitalLand to hold an EOGM to veto the bonus if the shareholders (owners) object to it.”
Its really the basar of the capitalland shareholders whether they like or dont like their CEO earning so much. They decide and they should be responsible for their views.
Likewise, the People, in general, decided not to do anything about the high salaries.
For both instances, I am not saying I support the high pay. Its up to the stakeholders who decided.
I wont blame the high salary recipents who get approval for receiving high salaries.
Its really the stakeholders. I welcome anyone to challenge my this conviction. I like to be convinced I am wrong.
peace.
why i say the stakeholders are responsible?
because i assume all my life we live in a democracy.
As long as Capital Land did not ask for a government bailout, why should we bother how much their CEOs get? Witch hunt going on here.
Now, the Capitamall tenants know why the rental is easy to go up and neve easy to come down. This actually happens to many the small business owners who are held on the throat while business climate is changing.
It is definitely not the result of ‘supply and demand’, but it is the work of greed and capitalism by the individuals who hold the control through what deems as political democracy.
While the people at large is suffering from increasing cost of living, here we have the elite and talented policy makers squeezing our people on the pretext of creating business competitiveness in this small market place.
Forget it, PAP, forget about your ideologies. Filling up our stomachs is much more important now.
15) Watchman on March 26th, 2009 11.59 am
“As long as Capital Land did not ask for a government bailout, why should we bother how much their CEOs get? Witch hunt going on here.”
witch hunt ??, msm mentioned it first. could it be some subtle signal trying to do a similar aig and rbs (borrow someone’s sword to kill).
anyway, why need bailout if you may fall back on this. own kakis lah.
http://www.capitaland.com/export/htmlgalleries/AnnualReport2007/flash/other_statistics.htm
shop rental high = big bonus for captial land CEO
shop owners suffer = he gain $ and happiness
No empathy.
Don’t see an issue here. Unless we are going on a witchhunt to take down all the highest earners in Singapore.
To add one more point, the company’s record profit is only on paper. The bonuses given to Liew and his peers are hard cash, that was recapitalised through fund raising activities like rights, bonds issue and renewing bank loans.
Our elites have learnt all this dirty tricks from the westerners. Their main objective is to profit themselves from the loopholes of accounting standards, fattening their own pockets first, then leave the rest to their own devices.
Another AIG-style of company in the making.
19) DB10 on March 26th, 2009 1.04 pm Don’t see an issue here. Unless we are going on a witchhunt to take down all the highest earners in Singapore.
The issue here is not who and who getting big fat bonuses. Rather it is about the well being of small business owners and the cost of living of the general public, especially in this trying time.
‘Fairness’ is out of reach, but things are not progessing in a ‘balance mode’.
Suprised though that a GLC which is government supported can have such a generous formula for reward ; wonder if it is adopted across the board for all GLCs.
Also property business is cyclical and when Captaland were to lose money in the next year as it may well do, will the reward formula deduct his pay to be fair and equitable.
Anywhere, congratulations for a guiness book of record for a reward of a GLC property company.and doing a favourable bench marking for ministers’ reward as well.
“19) DB10 on March 26th, 2009 1.04 pm
Don’t see an issue here.”
You refuse to see it and do not want to see it lah. In USA or UK, probably their people can see it better and may even make it a big isue.
“Unless we are going on a witchhunt to take down all the highest earners in Singapore.”
If can do it openly like in some other more democratic countries, a lot of them (not those truly deserving ones) will be peeing in their pants. who are you trying to kid.
$20m is a lot of money for one person. Enough for 1000 families for one year. I am not envious that he got so much money. He must have worked very hard for it.
Congratulations Mun Leong. Keep up the good work.
But a word of caution. Maybe not such a good idea to follow Wall Street ‘s ways on bonuses. We know how greed caused the present financial crises.
Please also read Conrad’s article dd today at http://www.todayonline.com
To #24 – mrthinktalk
What hard work he do? I think it is more like having connections help a lot.
All captial land employees work hard too but none of them got as high as him.
It is like everyone work hard and he get the most credits.
Ridicluous bonus scheme.
I believe almost all CEOs in the world get the ridiculuous bonus scheme u describe…..If it is their own company’s money, so be it…
/// 15) Watchman on March 26th, 2009 11.59 am
As long as Capital Land did not ask for a government bailout, why should we bother how much their CEOs get? Witch hunt going on here. ///
Some years back, $800 million was pumped into the company…
This piece of crap news smells like paving the way for the cronies and papis to up the renumeration and salaries when the economy recovers, on the stupid pretext of matching leaders’ salaries to top performers from pte sector.
Capital Land did not lose money like AIG mah..i guess he deserves it.
26) Concerned Citizen
“I believe almost all CEOs in the world get the ridiculuous bonus scheme u describe…..If it is their own company’s money, so be it…”
Not the case here. Capitaland basically built itself up from national funds which has its source from tax payers’ pockets. It is not a true blue pte company built from scratch from nothing, unlike Cheung Kung which started by LKS selling plastic flowers on the streets of kowloon. I have so so much respect for LKS for his rag-to-riches determination and business wit to battle against the odds of failing, unlike LML who essentially has nothing to loose as TH has deep pockets to help him weather any property crisis.
15) Watchman on March 26th, 2009 11.59 am – As long as Capital Land did not ask for a government bailout, why should we bother how much their CEOs get? Witch hunt going on here.
They did not ask for any government bailout becoz their parent company Temasick is feeding them with what’s left over from the failed invesments debacle.
Strange that the news is out only now for a bonus performance for 2007 and news lumped together with news on bonus performance for 2008 to even out the massiveness.
Money is the root to being booted out nowadays.
Someone is doing a no. on him
I wonder who is the low profile Chairman of Capitaland is and if he is really aware of the mechanics and details of the reward system for his CEO? Perhaps he should come forward and explain and tell Singapore how much his CEO had sacrificed for the nation. He better do it now as the property market is going down and before the losses accrue, allow his multi-millionaire CEO to resign gracefully now .
Take the money and run – nothing wrong with that as the precedence had already been set with John Olds at DBS, Philip P his harvard trained successor, and the host of ang mos who had left the GLCs, and despite the high cost to Singapore, more ang mos seem to be coming on to the GLCs.
His No Is Up
I think the chairman of Capitaland is Richard Hu, who should be near 80 now. Personally I think he is too old for the job of Chairman.
Capitaland certainly is not like any privately funded company; it is a GLC strongly backed by Temasek, which ultimately invests taxpayers’ money. Recently Capitaland managed to raise about $4 billion through a rights issue. It has been able to do so largely because of Temasek’s backing. Other non-Temasek-linked public listed companies so far have not tried to raise funds via a rights issue, because the management of those companies know that any rights issue will not be well received by the stockmarket and the management themselves (who are usually also substantial shareholders) will have financial difficulty subscribing to the rights at this point in time.
One last point, why is Capitaland called “Capitaland”? Simple, it has unlimited capital provided by the people of Singapore. As a Singaporean I feel that it is a raw deal for me, because I indirectly provide the capital for the company to invest and pay its CEO an antronomical income and get nothing in return, even when the company makes good profit. Heads you win, tail I lose.
29) pop-eye
…. TH has deep pockets to help him weather any property crisis….
It is ironical that our govt is corporatising state owned companies with the intention of relaxing the iron grip on these humongous entities, CL being one of them.
Yet we are seeing these TH owned companies (i.e. GLCs) being expanded exponentially using state funds without absorbing much risks as compared private companies. This is a big handicap to growing a vibrant and sustaining entrepreunial spirit here.
I think soon we’ll be no different from north korea with one ruling regime having a controlling stake in every company and business operation, with everyone working under the umbrella boss of TH.
what private sector? did Liew Munleong build the company with his own money from scratch?
It is a GLC. Its assets are mainly transferred from URA. Basically it was funded by our tax money and state assets.
I won’t get angry if it is CDL.
wake up Singaporeans, we have been ripped off too many times…
This bonus payout throws an interesting question. This is especially so since it is CapitaLand (CL). Assuming in so far as Temasek Holdings (TH) is a major shareholder (SH) in the co., that co. is a GLC. It has to be noted that TH indicated that it does not interfere with the co.’s management decision and direction, although it is a SH in the co.
As a result, CL may not need to account to its biggest stakeholder (i.e. TH) on the bonus payout in view of the non-interference policy. What about the rest of the SHs? In good times, a good bonus payout will not face much opposition since everyone getting them too. In bad times, maybe there’s minimal payout so maybe there’s no issue as well.
Therefore, with TH being a major SH, does that mean that corporate governance and accountability may be distorted since TH does not interfere with co.’s mgmt decision and direction?
Moreover, the world has seen that a free market model may be the most efficient model to run the economy but it is definitely not the most effective. Ask Lehman Bro or AIG. So with the corporatisation of GLCs (i.e. free mkt model) and then have TH inject equity capital into those corporatised GLCs (i.e. making them partially state-owned), what does it make them?
We live in very interesting times.
36) magus,
“….So with the corporatisation of GLCs (i.e. free mkt model) and then have TH inject equity capital into those corporatised GLCs (i.e. making them partially state-owned), what does it make them?…”
Basically left pocket to the right pocket. After the corporatisation, CL still belongs to the govt via TH. No diff at all. Just that unlike the poor suckers at URA, LML gets $20M for running an inherited company built from people’s money.
Our GLCs and TLCs are run very much along the same principle as those American Investment Banks. Merrill Lynch awarded a golden handshake of
US$160 million to the CEO who run the bank to the ground. I certainly hope
we don’t end up like that.
Capitaland is a GLC company. Any money paid affects Singaporeans. His bonus is obscene and is paid by every Singaporean. His obscene bonus can be used to feed and house thousands of needy and deserving Singaporeans.
This may be the reason why the government is unwilling to increase assistance to needy Singaporeans beyond $320 per month with the barb that” do they want to eat in hawker center, food court or restaurants” while the CEO of Capitaland can eat shark-fin and abalone everday.
We must not for forget that all our ministers, MM, SMs salaries are linked to the salary of the CEO of Capitaland. So his $20 million bonus will be used to compute the salary of all the ministers, MM, SMs and the added burden to Singapore tax-payers is another hundred of thousands of dollars x by the increasing number of ministers, MMs and SMs.
We should follow the Swedish policy.
Sweden says ‘Nej’ to bonuses
THE Swedish government yesterday said it would ban bonuses at all state-held companies and would ask private-sector firms to do the same, amid a growing outcry over high executive compensation despite the financial crisis.
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“The government has … decided to tighten compensation guidelines within the state-held companies. We will block the possibility to offer flexible compensation and bonuses,” Enterprise Minister Maud Olofsson, Finance Minister Anders Borg and Financial Markets Minister Mats Odell wrote in an opinion piece in the Dagens Nyheter daily. “According to the new guidelines, all top executives in state-held companies will only be offered a fixed salary,” they wrote.
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The Swedish state has holdings in 53 companies including in Nordic telecom goliath TeliaSonera, the SBAB mortgage institute and the Nordea banking group.
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While Swedish companies tend to offer executives relatively modest compensation compared to companies based in countries like the United States and Britain, outrage has grown as well in the Scandinavian country in recent months over high leadership bonuses at a time of economic crisis.
one may ase for the highest pay in the world, it is justified if the bottomlines are met; if not, no amt of rhetorics shud save him from being shown the door.
this honcho got his bonus becos his company went from strength to strength and he has delivered. unlike the others (??), his proof is actually in the pudding.
has anyone question if this fella’s pay is part of the bench mark used in the calculation for minister’s pay?
If yes, then there is an incentive to pay him well since his pay masters the ministers are paid xxx times his pay…
You take a guess.
also, if you check, the REITs from Capital group is having problems to pay the bonds that they owe which is maturing soon.
That’s why it needs to issue warrants to raise funds.
That’s why it seek MAS’s help to change some of the rules on REITS dividend payment policy.
This is the standard of his performance.
I let you decide on how good he is.
All those who say there’s no issue, it’s the private sector etc… perhaps you have been brainwashed to accept, like sheep, the way the world is? Perhaps you are blind?
The economic crisis we’re experiencing now is partly due to astronomical salaries/bonuses paid to CEOs, top management and their cronies. It’s easy to make a company look profitable on paper.
Then there’s the question of… how did the company make so much money? Shady deals? Exploitation of workers? Corruption? Unethical practices? Connections to the underworld?
To find the truth, you have to ask pertinent questions. Or are you afraid you can’t handle the truth?
“THE Swedish government yesterday said it would ban bonuses at all state-held companies and would ask private-sector firms to do the same, amid a growing outcry over high executive compensation despite the financial crisis.”
Wow, great leadership there !
Here we have 8 months bonus for civil servants! And pay cuts and retrenchments for private sector.
… if he can make that kind of profit in a recession year then he is worth his salt. But these CEOs were merely riding on a market boom and you do not need to be really intelligent to reap the benefits. Paying them such high bonuses is enabling them to take the shareholders for a “ride”. All too often, the way we remunerate our CEOs mimicks the greed in Wall Street and it has now proved to be wrongful and a new paradigm in the way we should remunerate these CEOs has evolved. A curb on these excesses is required but the process to transform will be painstakingly slow in Singapore. This is a rip-off.
At the end of the day, it is not what one may have sacrificed but who you know that opens the door to such jobs as CEO of GLCs where thousands work for you, consultants galore, ideas awaiting, limitless funds, and you have all the government support. Look who is the Chairman of Capitaland.
Pl accept it that one must be in the inside circle to get in, and with the very basic of qualification and perhaps no revelant experience, one is launched…and now
$ 20 Million! plus plus….. cushy job ? – but first check where were you from? how are you related ? what favours have your done others? it is all about Network & then politicking
Do Not begrude the man – for all his efforts he desserved it.
If the CEO of Capitaland is so good and capable, than let him risk his $20.5 million bonus and his multi-million dollars salary accumulated over the years to start a property company and reap rewards which no one can question.
Otherwise, we Singaporeans are paying his bonus for managing state properties. Capitaland is not a private/public company. It is a GLC.
$20 million for big boss….$700 a month for cleaner of boss office
so what if it is a GLC, he made money for the company, didnt messed up as the two big ones did, what’s wrong with thsat? if he had paid himself a top salary, didnt perform (??), give excuses instead, then it is wrong.
#48,
Very thoughtful point. Perhaps TH and GIC should headhunt him.