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SCMP Reporter

AFTER reading today's stories about Lai Sun Development Co and Albert Cheng, it would appear that today's Post has a theme that begins with G - and we don't mean generosity.

  But there is a special group which is in need of charity. That's the directors of Lai Sun who aren't among the top three.

  Yes, it seems hard to believe, but the rest of the board get peanuts. Ten minutes with the Lai See calculator reveals that six of the nine directors shared $619,000 between them.

  The top three directors, quite possibly chairman Lim Por-yen and his two sons, had a payout of at least $47 million, but the total payout for all nine directors comes to only $47.6 million.

  That means the other six directors got an average of $8,600 a month, about the same as a worker in a fast-food restaurant.

   In return, they shoulder the same risk as any other director if there is any legal claim against the board.

  To put it another way, three of the nine directors got 98.7 per cent of the cash.

  Lai Sun is revealing more data than usual because of a request from the stock exchange, but next year all listed companies will have to give this type of more detailed salary breakdown, and we've heard quite a few companies may be revealing rather wide disparities like this.

  At the moment, Lai Sun only has one independent non-executive director, so the change in the listing rules means it is going to be recruiting another director soon.

  Anyone who gets the call from Mr Lim should check the financial aspects of the job before signing up.

  Premium blend   THERE'S a peep into the world of super-sellers in the National Mutual Asia annual report.

  There's a full-page picture of Lai Lim-ching, who in May introduced a record 145 policies to the company - that's nearly five a day, assuming she didn't take a single day's break.

  We must admit to a certain sense of wonder that one person could assess so many people's insurance needs so quickly.

  In the picture Ms Lai is shown taking tea with a couple of customers.

  If she drinks two cups of tea with every policy-holder before they sign up, that would mean she'd have to drink 2.5 pints of tea a day.

  Tough business, being a super-seller.

  Creeping pol   BEING an accountant, it's only to be expected that Edward Chow Kwong-fai has paid great attention to the numbers in our article last week pointing out his unhappy record when it comes to polls in the Hong Kong Society of Accountants.

  He points out that in the October 25 general meeting, his motion got 35 per cent of the vote.

   In the December 16 annual general meeting, he got a vote from 40 per cent of the electors.

  Extrapolating, this would mean Edward would get nearly 75 per cent of the vote if he stood for the accountants' functional constituency in the Legislative Council elections next year.

  'As candidates need only a simple majority to win a seat at Legco, they should get a bloody good run for their money from me if I decide to run,' he said, making a pretty pointed note that unlike some people, he didn't have access to the Legco dining room for lobbying purposes.

  Extrapolating further, if the polls are rerun after 1997, Edward would get 150 per cent of the vote, but for the sake of his professional reputation we had better point out that this is our arithmetic, not his.

  Favourite cause   ONE interesting alternative to sending cards at Christmas is to make a donation to charity.

  A manager received a letter from a business partner in the US saying they'd done just that.

   As it happens they'd chosen a charity that happened to be named after, and run by, a member of their board.

  Nice idea. But isn't this a little bit incestuous? After all, Cheung Kong (Holdings) could hardly stop sending cards and instead give a load of money to the Li Ka-shing Foundation, could they?   Poor beggars   FURTHER proof that things are bad in the finance business comes from the Godown restaurant in the depths below the Furama Hotel, which is suffering a bad debt problem from a group of financiers long on libido but short on backbone.

  On December 19, a group of five financiers begged Godown boss Carole Allen to let them have drinks and later a meal when the place was otherwise packed out with about 190 real estate agents whooping it up for Christmas.

  Their eagerness to gain entry was perhaps fuelled by the fact that 95 per cent of those doing the whooping were female.

  This gang of five left without paying their $2,200 bill.

   This was a poor move as Carole not only knows their nicknames and telephone numbers, but also has a photo of them.

  Of course, it would be cruel to expose these characters publicly. But we will unless they pay up.

  No lug age   WE CAN'T give the name of a chap who has discovered a labour-saving trick with a home fax.

  If he's been doing work at home in the evening, instead of bringing the papers into the office the next day, he faxes them in using his home fax machine.

  That way he doesn't have to lug four sheets of paper or so to work.



Charity begins at home for top three directors