It’s one meeting you would not want to miss.
Members of the board of directors of Depa, which provides interiors to contractors including Arabtec, just voted to pay themselves Dh10,000 for turning up to their own board meetings.
At the company’s annual general meeting yesterday, shareholders approved a retrospective measure, proposed by the board of directors, to pay each member of the board a fee for each board meeting the directors attended.
The company returned to the black in the first quarter of the year after recording a Dh184 million loss in 2012, and a Dh143m loss last year.
While the Dh10,000 fee may seem generous to many, analysts say it is still smaller than at many other companies in the country. They also said that Depa’s remuneration packages were smaller than those at many other companies.
“Attendance fees are a way to motivate [board members] to make sure they show up,” said Martin McGuigan, the head of reward consultancy at Aon Hewitt, who said that some companies pay out more than US$5,000 in attendance fees.
“Retainer fees are paid to ensure directors sit on one company’s board, and not on someone else’s. The size of the fee varies depending on time commitment, industry sector, whether the company is listed or not and the size of the company.”
Shareholders also approved the payment of Dh5,000 for board committee members for attending committee meetings.
Depa declined to comment.
abouyamourn@thenational.ae
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