MONTREAL - Two top executives of Quebec's giant pension fund - on sick leave for months - could pocket up to $1.1 million in taxpayer-funded severance pay if they're removed from their jobs under certain conditions.
The two vice-presidents, Susan Kudzman and Ghislain Parent, have employment contracts with the Caisse de Depot et Placement that include generous severance clauses if they're pushed out the door involuntarily.
They get nothing if they quit on their own.
However, their contracts provide for "a separation allowance in the event of dismissal without just or sufficient cause .'' Their respective payouts are equal to one year's pay, a 2008 Caisse report shows.
Susan Kudzman, executive vice-president of risk, could get $538,000 if she is nudged out.
Ghislain Parent, executive vice-president of finance and operations, could pocket $614,000.
The executives have been on leave from the Caisse - which manages more than than $130 billion in assets - since former BCE Inc. chief Micheal Sabia took the reins at the fund last year.
This week, Quebec's TVA network reported that Parent has agreed to leave his job.
Maxime Chagnon, a spokesman for the Caisse, said neither executive has been fired and that both remain on the payroll, though on sick leave.
The $1.1 million severance package tab is thus Œ'hypothetical,'' Chagnon added.
Any executive departures will be "officially announced' 'in due time, he added, refusing to discuss if either Parent or Kudzman has hired a lawyer to negotiate any exit package.
Parent and Kudzman both went on sick leave from the Caisse's luxurious Montreal headquarters after the fund racked up two years of sub-par performance.
The Caisse, which invests in stocks, bonds, real estate, money markets and individual, private companies, had a nightmare 2008, posting a -25% return amid the financial crisis.
It posted a better 10% return in 2009. Yet that was still below the institutional benchmark for public pension funds and well below the 14% return achieved by the $96.4 billion Ontario Teachers Pension Fund.
The Caisse's net assets have dropped to $130 billion from $155.3 billion in 2007.
Andrew.mcintosh@agenceqmi.ca
