Express & Star comment: Gorging on corporate excesses
The fallout from the liquidation of Carillion was always likely to pose some challenging questions over the firm’s management.
We know there is no single factor to blame for the collapse of a business that not so long ago seemed to be riding high.
The reasons why things went so dramatically wrong are many and varied.
It will take months to get to the bottom of the company’s failings.
More coverage of the collapse of Carillion
However, documents revealing decisions over huge pay levels for top bosses at the Wolverhampton-based business are simply stunning.
It seems that while the company was hurtling towards oblivion, those at the top had only one thing on their minds, namely the preservation of their own bulging pay packets.
Worryingly, this appears to have been at the expense of addressing Carillion’s deteriorating profits. It is an absolute scandal that while suppliers were having their payments delayed for weeks, the firm’s directors were doing everything they could to protect their pay and astronomical bonuses.
Shamefully, they could still walk off with their bonuses as a result of so-called ‘clawback’ provisions.
Meanwhile, thousands of workers at companies caught up in the supply chain are fighting for their jobs.
Since the collapse of Carillion in mid January, 1,600 workers have lost their jobs, while more than 7,000 others are in a state of limbo.
Many suppliers face ruin as a result of this sickening greed.
Business Secretary Greg Clark has confirmed plans to review how executive bonuses are paid, but the concern is whatever measures are put in place may not go far enough.
One thing we have learned since the fall of Carillion is that within the higher echelons of the company, a dysfunctional culture existed.
Its mantra was ‘greed above all else’ and tragically nobody saw fit to question it until it was too late.
It is up to the Government to exert powers to quash company efforts to protect executive bonuses.
But equally as importantly, ministers have an obligation to ensure this type of rampant avarice is not allowed to happen again elsewhere.
Those at the top of Carillion have gorged on the worst kind of corporate excess. We must make sure this cannot happen in future.
