LAST week they were dubbed the 12 apostles. Yesterday it was the 12 angry men. The 12 Scottish Amicable executives who stand to gain up to #14m in share options, if their plan goes ahead, now stand to lose it.
Graham Pottinger, chief executive of Scottish Mutual, said there would be no share option deals if he won the day. On the future of the 12 he commented: ''We would evaluate, as part of the integration process, the strength of the management of Scottish Amicable and we would seek to strengthen our own team, where it needs it, with their people.''
ScotAm's deputy managing director, Mr Paul Bradshaw, told The Herald: ''The remuneration arrangements were hardly out of line with the rest of the industry. If somebody chooses to take the business over and doesn't choose to pay a decent salary, we would enjoy careers from here, whatever happens here.''
Asked whether the 12 were worried at seeing their pot of gold disappear, Mr Bradshaw said: ''No. I and the others absolutely take the view that our responsibility here is to our policyholders. It is only in the event that someone was to make us a real offer that we would consider it.''
The ScotAm plans were complex, fuelling immediate suspicions that the complexity was partly due to executive greed. Within hours of the announcement, ScotAm was having to justify the apparent contrast between the thin gruel being offered to policyholders and the rich soup available for those at the top table.
ScotAm's Gavin Stewart told The Herald last week that the 12 were putting up #1.5m of their own money, and he dismissed suggestions that they had negotiated loans on beneficial terms to do so.
He stressed that to trigger the big pay-out, the company would have to increase business by 25% a year for five years. And if they hit the demanding target, policyholders would reap their share of the rewards too.
Mr Pottinger commented: ''A lot depends on where you start from. A rise of 25% sounds very high, but look at what Scottish Mutual has achieved.''
Scottish Mutual's business grew by over 50% last year. Scottish Equitable, the other Scottish life company to demutualise, has managed increases of nearly 30% for the past two years.
And by moving the goalposts, figures can be made to look even better. Scottish Mutual's total new premiums last year, as opposed to treating lump sums on annualised basis, rose by 81%.
One independent financial adviser commented: ''You can also do things to bring in business, improve the short-term figures, and hit targets. But the chickens can come home to roost later - when those executives have perhaps retired.''
The share handout proposal was unprecedented in the life industry. No Scottish Mutual or Scottish Equitable executive received shares or share options in the parent company when they were taken over. Norwich Union has not decided whether or how it will a llocate shares to staff. In the big building society flotations, neither Halifax nor Woolwich is offerring any share options to executives, though Alliance & Leicester is.
David Wallace, a director of IFAs Portfolio and Pension Management at East Kilbride, commented: ''You have to look at the value of an individual to a company. If Richard Branson had gone down with his balloon, the share price would have dropped like a balloon too. If one of the senior directors of a mutual insurance company disappeared, it would make little difference to company profits, so why should they be able to take out a million or two?''
Jim Martin, the former general secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland, is among the 12 Scottish Amicable managers in line to win share options averaging over #1m each if the existing plan goes ahead.
Mr Martin caused shock waves when he quit the EIS two years ago for the private sector. From a senior personnel post he was promoted in September 1995 to head of human resources.
ScotAm has not named the 12. However, nine of the other 10 are known to be:
q Roy Nicolson, managing director since 1990. An efficient administrator rather than a charismatic salesman like Bill Proudfoot whom he succeeded.
q Paul Bradshaw, deputy managing director. Named as chief executive of the proposed new Scottish Amicable Life company. Unlike Nicolson, has an aggressive shareholder-oriented style.
q Gavin Stewart, general manager, product development. Lured from Britannia Life, bright and clever, but his ingenious ''tax-free #50,000 Pep'' last year fell foul of the Inland Revenue.
q Clive Cowdrey, head of ScotAm International. Super-salesman, brought in by Bradshaw.
q Ashok Gupta, finance director. Bright young actuary, former partner in Tillinghast, the company used as an independent adviser by ScotAm.
q Douglas Ferrans, chief executive Scottish Amicable Investment Managers.
q Stewart Gilchrist, chief investment oficer SAIM. Both rose to the top when Graeme Knox, investment director, unexpectedly resigned in September 1995.
q Jim Mitchell, general manager operations. Long-time efficient organiser.
q John Cowan, general manager sales and marketing. Long-serving,salesman.
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