‘Golden parachute’ for AZ’s David Brennan

pharmafile | July 17, 2012 | News story | Sales and Marketing AstraZeneca, David Brennan, GMB 

David Brennan, the former chief executive of AstraZeneca, could receive more than £4million as a payout after being ousted from the firm.

The embattled Brennan was said to have taken early retirement, but the decision to step down as of 1 June had much to do with shareholder dissatisfaction with the company’s performance.

His total remuneration for 2011 was £9.1 million and, despite waiving his bonus for the five months he worked this year and for his notice period, Brennan is to get £914,122 in cash for the 11 months of his contract he did not work.

While his share awards in 2011 and 2012 have been forfeited, he still receives £1.5m in shares and could get up to £2m more – plus a pension of £978,000 a year from a pot worth £14 million. 

This ‘golden parachute’ has drawn the ire of trade unions, with a GMB spokesman saying Brennan will be “extremely, if not obscenely comfortable after his retirement”. 

Earlier this year AstraZeneca said it was cutting 7,300 jobs worldwide, with up to 350 of them at the Alderley Park site in the UK. 

Brennan, who turns 60 in 2013, was at AstraZeneca for 36 years, the last six of them in the top job. But his reign saw numerous late-stage failures and weak financial results. 

Revenue for the first quarter this year was down 11% to $7.34 billion, while core earnings per share was down 19% compared with the first quarter in 2011. 

Chief financial officer Simon Lowth is acting as interim chief executive until a permanent successor is in place. 

Aware of the need for positive change, he oversaw this month’s deal with Bristol-Myers Squibb to buy diabetes specialist Amylin, in a $7 billion deal which includes the established diabetes treatment Byetta. 

Prior to being eased out of the company, Brennan pledged that partnering with other firms “will be a way of life going forward,” as the company makes its pipeline ‘the number one priority’.

Adam Hill

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