Raine Chairman to be paid œ400,000 once McAlpine takeover goes through - Barber gets pay-off

Roy Barber, chairman of Raine, will be paid a one-off fee of œ400,000 once the agreed œ44 million bid by fellow contractor Alfred McAlpine goes through.

Barber managed Raine on a consultancy arrangement rather than on a conventional salary basis.

Last year his œ240,000 fee was topped up by a œ100,000 bonus, awarded because Barber had completed a major restructuring of the ailing group.

Under the terms of the proposed McAlpine take-over, Barber will leave the company. However, as he is paid quarterly in advance he does not have to give notice of his resignation and will receive no compensation - just the œ400,000 "success fee".

Barber said: "I have no contract, no company car, no pension and will get no comp-ensation and so I think the fee is quite appropriate.

"I would have preferred very large phantom options but the board preferred a fixed fee.

"When I was appointed executive chairman in 1995, breach of all the banking covenants, when tested against the 30 June 1995 audited figures, was inevitable. Therefore I had to commence the immediate renegotiation of all banking facilities."

The offer document sent to all Raine shareholders last week revealed that Barber was eligible for his œ400,000 success fee on the occurrence of the first of three possible scenarios:

lin the event of another group taking over Raine:

lBarber, on or before 31 October 1997, renegotiating the terms of both Raine's master facility agreement and note restructuring agreement "to enable the Raine Group to carry on as a going concern"

lany other event that "in the opinion of the majority of the Raine board, at its absolute discretion, is of such a nature that it is fair and reasonable for such a payment to be made".