THE FINANCIAL TIMES: Boynton's £1.5m Shell bonanza: “The details of Ms Boynton's leaving package were announced yesterday by the oil and gas group, in time for her 50th birthday tomorrow. She was one of three directors to lose their jobs last year after Shell's reserves debacle.” (ShellNews.net) 8 Jan 05

By Clay Harris

Published: January 8 2005

Judy Boynton, who resigned as Royal Dutch/Shell's chief financial officer in April, will take away more than £1.5m in cash, shares and pension entitlement.

She is also showing nearly a £200,000 paper profit on unexercised share options.

The details of Ms Boynton's leaving package were announced yesterday by the oil and gas group, in time for her 50th birthday tomorrow.

She was one of three directors to lose their jobs last year after Shell's reserves debacle.

While Sir Philip Watts, chairman, and Walter van de Vijver, head of exploration and production, were sacked by the board in March, Ms Boynton was simply asked to step aside in April, after less than 10 months as finance director.

Since then, she continued as an adviser to Jeroen van der Veer, chief executive, on projects including the group's structure and its overall financial framework. She left by mutual agreement on December 31.

Ms Boynton joined Shell in June 2001 from Polaroid, the US imaging company. She had previously spent more than 20 years at Amoco, the US oil company that was taken over by BP.

Shell said she would receive a cash severance payment of $1m (£522,000), the minimum payable under her contract. She was paid £401,000 in 2003 but did not get a performance-related bonus in 2003 or 2004.

She will take her pension entitlement of $984,225 as a lump sum. Previously allotted shares with a market value of €781,069 (£550,000) were released to her.

Ms Boynton retains options over another 140,000 shares at €62, above the current price, and with some subject to the group's future performance, and 70,000 at $40.64.

The first third of the latter group has been available to her since March 2004 and yesterday was worth $371,770 more than the price she would pay if she exercised them.

Sir Philip received a severance payment of £1m and Mr van de Vijver got €3.8m in August, when it was worth £2.6m. Those figures did not include shares and pension entitlement.

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