Fury as £8.4million Thomas Cook boss says: Don’t blame me
REDUNDANT Thomas Cook staff yesterday savaged the firm’s chief executive after he defended his £8.4million pay package and insisted he did nothing wrong.
Peter Fankhauser said he did ‘not have a bad conscience’ over his pay and bonuses as the business headed towards catastrophic collapse.
The 58-year- old also said he had only received £4million of the total because the rest was awarded in shares that are now worthless.
And he denied the collapse of the 178-year- old company last Monday was his fault, claiming he would not have done anything differently and blaming the banks and the Government for pulling the rug from under it.
Mike Kilburn, 47, a cabin manager for 19 years, said unemployed staff would have no sympathy for Mr Fankhauser.
The married father-of-two said: ‘Everybody at the top got their big cut – a massive bonus when they didn’t actually achieve anything. He’s tried to spin it. He made 9,000 people unemployed, so he’s not getting any sympathy.
‘He took money for something he didn’t deserve. He was at the helm – he is responsible.’
Today should have been payday for the 9,000 staff who lost their jobs, but none expects to be paid.
Labour MP Graham Stringer, a member of the Commons transport committee, said Mr Fankhauser had ‘lost complete touch with reality’, adding: ‘This is typical of the chief executives of many of our businesses. The level of pay is outrageous. He’s partly responsible for putting a lot of people out of work.’
Manuel Cortes, general secretary of the Transport Salaried Staffs Association, said Mr Fankhauser’s denials were ‘pathetic’.
Mr Fankhauser told The Mail on Sunday of his frustration that the Government did not step in to provide assurances to investors, adding: ‘We were so close to a deal. We didn’t ask for a bridging loan, just a back-up loan, which would be drawn only in the worst-case scenario. We had enough money. We had solutions.’ Meanwhile, it emerged yesterday that the former Thomas Cook boss who presided over its decline spent the run-up to its collapse at his £2million Spanish mansion.
Manny Fontenla- Novoa, 65, pocketed £16.8million in pay and performance- related bonuses despite being chief executive during one of the most disastrous periods in the company’s history.
Under his leadership from 2007 to 2011, Thomas Cook’s share price plummeted as a series of profit warnings destroyed any chance of recovery for the firm. Mr Fontenla-Novoa, who is now president of the loss-making travel agent Logitravel, spent the summer at his mansion in the mountains of the Costa Blanca as Thomas Cook headed for the rocks.
The father-of-four and wife Lesley Ann moved to the gated fivebed property after selling their Surrey mansion for £4million.
A British expat said: ‘I suspect he’ll be keeping his head down.’
Several official inquiries into the failure of the debt-laden firm have been launched.