NXP has paid out €14.4m to its board of management including four managers who left the company this year. The payment has fired up media and union criticism in the Netherlands.
"The €14.4m is the total remuneration for the whole board of management for 2008", an NXP spokesman told Electronics Weekly.
The four managers who received the money and subsequently left NXP were former CEO Frans van Houten, Theo Claasen, Peter van Bommel, and Hein van der Zeeuw.
The NXP spokesman emphasised that none of the €14.4m represented a bonus payment and the €14.4m represented the total remuneration paid to the board made up of salary and pension entitlement for the whole board plus, just for the departing four managers, severance payments.
"The €14.4m didn't include any bonus payment", the NXP spokesman told Electronics Weekly, "the decision was taken not to pay any bonuses."
Asked about media reports that former CEO Frans van Houten had received €3.5m of the €14.4m payout, the NXP spokesman said: "We did not split out any of the money, and we will not split it out. We cannot do that. We are not stock-listed."
Asked if he would deny that van Houten received €3.5m, the spokesman declined to comment.
An SEC filing reveals, however, that in 2007, €250,000 was paid to the chairman of NXP's supervisory board, Sir Peter Bonfield.
Asked about the reactions of the unions to the report, the spokesman said: "The co-operation and dialogue with the unions is still very good. We have always had good relationships with our social partners including the unions."
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