ANITE, at 24p, it's your choice

Picobird,
The problem is that from a contractual perspective the FD did nothing wrong. From the current version of reality his failure was to negotiate earnouts which would have a fixed cash value to be met by payment in shares at the time they fall due. Absolutely no-one at the time these deals were struck envisaged the crash in value that has since occured and therefore the damaging ratchet effect they would have.

On the pay-off front. Because he had done nothing wrong and was not on any company disciplinary procedure the company could not sack him, their only option was to buy him out. It his highly likely that he was on 12-18 months notice and this would have to be bought out. He also would have had options and these too would have had to be bought out. There is no way that Anite could have won a case against him.

A key to the success and unlocking of the potential of this company is the recruitment of a credible FD. If they were to offer a maximum of lets say six month notice how many good credible accountants with a great track record would they get? The answer none! I work with a team of people non of whom have under six months notice, this is a double-edged sword, we are protected from arbitrary decisions as to our futures, but we are less desirable in the market as the lead time to get us out is long and most companies are genereally impatient to get their hands on a new employee, especially if the old one has left precipitously. I am against government intervention in respect of determining contractual ts and cs, they quite frankly do not have a clue, even the tories were crap at this, remember the fiasco about share options when they withdrew, albeit temporarily the tax relief on the first £6000 of gain only to discover that the people they were hurting were the workers?.

I am not personally very happy with the situation having lost a fortune with this organisation. In my opinion they will be taken out sometime this year if the climate becomes marginally more positive. The fact that most debate on this company sits around management credibility and not company performance says it all for me. They (the management) are obscuring a reasonably good story as far as performance is concerned.