Revealed: Fonterra CEO Miles Hurrell's new pay

Fonterra CEO Miles Hurrell. Photo / File

Fonterra chief executive Miles Hurrell was paid $2.26 million for his time between August 15, 2018 and July 31, 2019, the co-operative's annual report shows.

It's a far cry from the remuneration his predecessor received - Theo Spierings took home a final payment of $4,673,359 which included performance payments realised for 2017. That followed two consecutive payments of more than $8m for 2016 and for 2017.

Hurrell's remuneration consisted of $1.377m in salary, $600,000 special payment for taking on the CEO position and $219,375 deferred payment of a 2017 long-term incentive.

Hurrell was interim CEO from August 15, 2018 to March 4, 2019.

After facing pressure from shareholders and the media over Spierings' remuneration in light of Fonterra's financial losses, the co-op has changed its performance payment system and last year the thresholds were not met.

It has also reigned in capital expenditure, reducing the annual spend from more than $1 billion to $600m.

"We have reduced headcount by more than 1,400 people, frozen salaries for our people earning over $100,000 and decided that we won't be paying incentive bonuses for FY19," the annual report notes.

"We've made a good start, but we have more to do."

Fonterra had 20,000 staff as at July 2019, down from 21,500 at the same time last year.

Of those 11,400 are based in New Zealand and 8,600 offshore. The majority of the head count reduction was overseas based positions.

The report notes 708 staff earning more than $100,000.

"Our headline loss of $605 million doesn't reflect the commitment we made to you last year and frankly, isn't good enough," chairman John Mongahan said in the annual report to shareholders.

Fonterra has today just confirmed more job losses are ahead - more likely to be among senior roles, says Hurrell.

Fonterra is closing its specialist cheese plant at Paraparaumu, which employs 70 people. The operation is to move to the company's Eltham, Taranaki cheese plant, where 35 more jobs will be created. Final job losses have yet to be announced.

No other New Zealand plants are to be closed.