Context sought on EGL executive pay, profit

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Opinion

Re: Testing year but progress noted, July 29 story.

Matt Todd notes “that it has been a tough year for everyone in Tairāwhiti and Eastland Group is no exception”. Although, it could be said that the employees of Eastland Group are an exception.

The highest paid employee of the group, which one would assume is Mr Todd, received

$1.15 million in remuneration for the year ended March 31, 2023. This is an extraordinary amount of money given the performance of the Eastland Group in the same period. It appears Mr Todd may have been generously rewarded for the sale of Eastland Network, together with another seven employees who last year received in excess of half a million dollars (although, some of these payments may have been inflated by redundancy payments).

Either which way, it would be helpful if the chairman could give some context to these payments at the AGM.

I reside in Wellington and I am unable to attend the AGM but another question for the chairman could be, if it were not for the sale of the network, what would have been the net profit of the Eastland Group for the year ended March 31, 2023? The P&L indicates a net loss before tax of $10.342 million, and this includes net profit of $9.652m from the recently sold network! It would be helpful if this could be clarified at the AGM.

John Simpson, Wellington

Footnote from Ed: The Trust Tairāwhiti annual meeting is being held at Waikanae Surf Life Saving Club at 5.30pm on Thursday, August 10. RSVPs are requested by today. The meeting is also being livestreamed at:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGVgWIcfXFE