Latest news with #PeterJackson
Axios
a day ago
- Business
- Axios
Illinois' new sports betting tax could hurt casual gamblers most
As football season nears, Chicago area sports bettors may be in for sticker shock. The big picture: Illinois' new state budget includes a tax hike for online sports gaming — $0.25 for the first 20 million wagers, then $0.50 for every bet after that — which will impact big sites like FanDuel and DraftKings, and their customers. Why it matters: FanDuel announced it will pass that tax onto consumers, instituting a $0.50 tax on every online wager come Sept. 1, just in time for football season, which generates the most sports betting revenue. DraftKings has signaled similar plans, but hasn't announced any hikes yet. Those are the only two online gaming sites to pass the 20 million wager mark in the state last year and generate close to 75% of the state's sports betting market. Zoom in: Both sites have put down roots in Chicago, opening brick-and-mortar sports books at Wrigley Field and the United Center. Company leaders were initially outraged by the state's new tax and even suggested they could end their operations in Illinois. They've since backed away from that stance, instead opting to pass the tax directly to customers. The intrigue: While online gaming is a multibillion-dollar industry, a large portion of the gamblers are casual users, placing smaller bets or running fantasy sports competitions. What they're saying: "We are disappointed that the Illinois Transaction Fee will disproportionately impact lower wagering recreational customers," Flutter CEO Peter Jackson said in a statement. Flutter is the parent company of FanDuel. "We also believe the introduction of the Illinois Transaction Fee will likely motivate some Illinois-based customers to bet with unregulated operators. These operators do not contribute tax revenue to the state." Flashback: Online gambling has exploded since states started legalizing it in 2018. By the numbers: Since Illinois legalized it in 2020, over 1.3 billion individual bets have been placed, wagering over $48 billion, according to the Illinois Gaming Board. FanDuel made $491 million last year, while DraftKings made $418 million. Together, both companies paid over $200 million in taxes. Yes, but: The state, which is facing budget deficits, wants more. Context: This isn't the first time Illinois has dipped into sports gambling revenue. Just last year, they passed a graduated tax system that taxed sites up to 40% based on revenue. This new tax adds on top of that. Between the lines: If sports gamblers leave these sites and use the black market, it would undermine the state's revenue goals. "Should the state reverse its decision at any point in the future, FanDuel will immediately remove the $0.50 transaction fee," Jackson said.
The Verge
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Verge
Inside the struggle to create a cozy Lord of the Rings game
When new employees start at Weta Workshop, they're herded into a meeting room with a long, unassuming conference table. On the walls, behind panes of glass and in between statues, swords, and masks, are five Oscars. Four of them were awarded to the studio for its efforts on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings films. New hires are offered a chance to hold one of those Oscars, but there's a catch: handling the golden statuette marks you with a curse, preventing you from ever winning one yourself. Rarely do inductees take Weta up on the offer. Weta Workshop's fledgling Game Studio hasn't achieved the same level of prestige as its film and special effects teams. There's been no success to build superstition, no room for myths. And yet, the studio's first major console release, Tales of the Shire, seems to have inherited its own curse. According to more than a dozen current and former employees, the game's development has been hobbled by ineffective management, plagued with poor decision-making and communication, sidetracked by circumstance, and, ultimately, spoiled by the company's inexperience in building high-profile video games. One former employee said, 'It's a miracle this game is coming out at all.' Another said making it has been 'hell.' The studio lurched from deadline to deadline to get the game out the door, and a culture of distrust and crunch left staff feeling burnt out, they said. All those who spoke with The Verge requested anonymity, fearing retaliation for breaches of confidentiality. In October 2024, the studio announced to staff that it would be restructuring, laying off nine staff and disestablishing the positions of lead producer and lead game designer. The changes came as a shock, eroding morale and driving a wedge between Weta's leadership team and its developers, according to our sources. Four more staff members resigned in the succeeding weeks, dropping the studio's headcount to approximately 30. While redundancies have become a familiar story in games, particularly in the last two years, the tale of Weta's Game Studio isn't quite that story. It's the story of a studio attempting to make a big leap into console gaming, one that shows what Weta could do with a Lord of the Rings game. Ultimately, it's a story about inexperience, exhaustion, the difficulty of developing video games, misunderstandings, and mismanagement. Perhaps most importantly, it's a story about perseverance — the tiny marvel of making a video game when the odds are stacked against you. Weta Workshop's Game Studio was established in 2012. It came into being during a partnership with buzzy US tech startup Magic Leap, tasked with building gaming experiences for its augmented reality headset. The studio's staff numbers swelled, and it produced several titles to muted fanfare, including Dr. Grordbort's Invaders and Dr. Grordbort's Boosters. When Magic Leap discontinued development of its headset in 2020, a significant but undisclosed number of employees at the Game Studio were made redundant. Out of the ashes, remaining staff planted the first seeds for Tales of the Shire. In 2020, 'cozy' games were exploding in popularity, buoyed by COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns and the runaway success of Animal Crossing. The rolling green hills of the Shire provided an ideal backdrop, and Weta Workshop had delivered huge wins with the Lord of the Rings franchise. The pitch for Tales of the Shire piqued the interest of Private Division, which was an independent label of US-based gaming giant Take-Two Interactive at the time. Private Division provided funding to build a prototype, and by 2022, it had seen enough to partner with Weta and help the studio bring the game to life. Weta Workshop had never made a video game like Tales of the Shire before. Employees familiar with development suggested the experience that staff had gained working on Magic Leap titles didn't easily translate to commercial 'double A' titles. From early on, there appeared to be signs of trouble. The game felt more like a handful of disparate quests and minigames, with a lack of focus on gameplay loops, several staff said. This isn't wholly unusual — game development can be patchwork, a slow and iterative process pulling varying elements together. But the lack of direction put the studio on the backfoot. According to several developers, Weta's senior leadership did not view making video games as all that different from its work in film. And because of this, employees and former staff suggested the studio didn't adequately invest in senior talent or resource the project appropriately. Departments such as design and programming were either understaffed or inexperienced from the beginning, they said, and Weta was aware of the issue but didn't act to resolve it. There were also communication issues between departments. One incident, multiple sources told us, was related to the addition of an in-game economic system revolving around collecting buttons. The idea was that, each night after a feast, fat hobbits' waistcoats would burst open, leaving buttons around the village. The player could pick them up and trade them for items. The feature was greenlit by production and then had to be dropped — there simply wasn't enough time to add it in against impending deadlines. When the lead designer decided to implement it anyway, staff said it caused significant tension and set the team back a few days. 'We were always chasing after the next milestone and the next milestone, and the timelines we were given were near impossible,' said one Weta employee who worked on Tales of the Shire for multiple years. The team prioritized hitting milestones, which meant several suggested features and ideas never made it into the game. But the team was hitting deadlines without tackling underlying problems in the code base, which one employee referred to as 'a pile of dogshit.' Sometimes, they said, this meant taking shortcuts. Often, it meant they missed crucial time for refactoring, the process of trimming down the code to make it easier to work with. Instead of hiring senior programmers, they said they were kicking the can down the road, incurring a significant tech debt and creating a backlog of work to deal with. About 18 months into the project, Tales of the Shire had to contend with a shift in leadership, one that employees said tanked morale. After studio director Amie Wolken quit Weta in November 2023 to take a position as CEO at Dinosaur Polo Club, a New Zealand indie studio, Weta needed a replacement. It took six months to find Tony Lawrence, who arrived at Weta in April 2024. Lawrence had a long career in Australia at multiple studios, including as head of 2K Australia. During his seven-year tenure there, the studio delivered two successful BioShock games and a Borderlands title. After leaving 2K, Lawrence worked at developer Mighty Kingdom, where he served as executive director and chief operating officer when the studio listed on Australia's stock exchange in April 2021. Mighty Kingdom was once considered a shining light of the Australian games industry, but during Lawrence's reign, it released just one console game — Conan Chop Chop — that launched to disappointing sales, and the company's share price crashed 98 percent. After his hiring at Weta, there was an 'instantaneous' shift in the studio's vibe, according to one employee. 'It was like the air stilled, you could feel it, and morale slowly started to crumble from there on,' they said. Those familiar with Lawrence's hiring said the process felt rushed and noted that Lawrence did not meet with those inside the studio who would be reporting to him. This, one senior team member noted, was 'very weird.' 'It was like the air stilled.' Lawrence did not respond to a request for comment. Weta did not respond to specific questions around his employment either. In January 2025, as The Verge was investigating this story, Lawrence led an all-staff meeting to discuss breaches of confidentiality. In that meeting, he told staff that 'it's not cool to talk to journalists,' discouraging them from speaking about their experiences. Wolken also did not respond to a request for comment. Alongside internal issues, Tales of the Shire had to contend with a major external one: uncertainty over the fate of its publisher, Private Division. In May 2024, IGN reported Take-Two was 'quietly killing' the label, slashing staff numbers and closing two of its studios. By November, Private Division had been sold to an unknown buyer. The upheaval occurred toward the final stages of development on Tales of the Shire and left Weta in limbo for several months. According to multiple sources, Weta also waited on milestone payments. (Private Division did not respond to a request for comment.) It was unclear to Weta employees exactly when, or if, Private Division would continue. Several staff noted the situation with Private Division was demoralizing, igniting concerns the game may even be canceled. In January, Bloomberg revealed former staff of publishing house Annapurna Interactive had purchased Private Division's games and franchises from Take-Two, including Tales of the Shire, with the backing of Haveli Investments, a private equity firm based in Austin, Texas. The new publisher, revealed during this year's Summer Games Fest, is named Fictions. Weta received its milestone payments, but there has still been confusion for staff, internally, about the state of publishing and which company is overseeing it. Former copresident of Annapurna, Deborah Mars, is listed as cofounder and cohead of Fictions on LinkedIn. She did not respond to a request for comment in March. Fictions did not respond to a subsequent request for comment in June. The press email listed on Private Division's website bounces. In an emailed statement, Jessica Wallace, chief marketing officer at Weta Workshop, said, 'Neither the departure of Amie nor the challenges [Private Division] has had through the year has impacted directly on the team's work building a great game.' One of the most pernicious issues in game development is 'crunch,' a practice variously defined as 'extended periods of drastic overtime' or 'a sudden spike in work hours.' The effect of crunch has been well-studied, with the exploit leaving lasting effects on physical and mental health. Many current and former Weta staff said they worked long hours, especially as deadlines approached. 'It was a systemic problem,' one experienced developer said. 'It was a resourcing problem and general mismanagement of the project.' Three staff members who spoke to The Verge said they felt pressure to work overtime coming from management and senior leadership. In August 2024, as a crucial deadline approached, a company-wide meeting was called. According to those who attended, Weta's leadership suggested that if the team did not meet this major milestone, then there was real concern over the studio's long-term sustainability. One staff member told The Verge it felt like the team was 'strongly encouraged to crunch' in that meeting. Another former staff member said that leadership had previously told the studio there was no crunch because such a practice involved working 70 hours or more per week for several months. 'I felt a little bit gaslit, given the amount of work that I was doing,' they said. However, there are employees who shied away from dubbing the extra hours as 'crunch,' but noted there were broader issues related to overwork and burnout in parts of the development team. One employee stated, 'I do not see our studio as a crunch studio,' suggesting the problem was specific to certain developers who chose to work extra hours and consistently accrued overtime. The studio works on a 'swings and roundabouts' model, which is meant to provide employees with the flexibility to bank hours worked and take time off later. In practice, this caused havoc. One staff member mentioned time off was not tracked well, so it was difficult to adequately resource or finance as needs shifted. Often, they said, staff would work extra hours, but they didn't receive that time back in kind — there was simply no opportunity to take time off with deadlines baring down. Wallace responded to this by stating, 'There was no 'crunch' during the development of Tales of the Shire. We extended deadlines to prioritize the well-being of our team, and all staff worked under New Zealand employment agreements, which ensure fair and adequate compensation for all hours worked.' There is nothing indicating Weta Workshop acted illegally, but staff that spoke to The Verge said there were definitely crunch periods during development of Tales of the Shire. One staff member said they could not remember a time when they were not working beyond 50 hours a week. Another responded to Weta's statement saying there was no crunch by simply texting back 'lol.' On October 4th, 2024, in an all staff meeting, Weta's executive team announced there would be a round of redundancies. It was an incredibly disruptive event that shook the team. 'That really came out of the blue for us,' said one senior developer. Leadership explained the need to cut staff was to provide the studio with long-term sustainability. Other parts of Weta's business were feeling the effects of the pandemic slump in tourism and film, and the studio had yet to sign another contract to fund future projects. Every staff member who spoke with The Verge expressed disappointment. 'It was handled terribly,' said a former member of the team. After the announcement, one staff member said it felt like the 'Hunger Games trials to keep your jobs.' They said those whose roles were being 'disestablished' would need to reapply for their jobs or other jobs within the studio. One developer said that, post-announcement, coming into work 'felt like coming to a funeral.' According to documentation seen by The Verge, the core development team on Tales of the Shire was predominantly male. Only four senior leadership positions on the project were held by women, while 18 were held by men in early 2024. The redundancies in October 2024 saw the departure of four non-male employees on the team. Today, the studio has five non-male employees on its roster of 26 development staff, sources said. Those ratios are not uncommon in modern, mid-sized studios, but sources noted that this had left diverse voices out of key meetings. After a final version of the game was completed in November 2024, about half of the studio began working on DLC, although no contract for that work had been signed with a publisher. Other studio heads that The Verge spoke to suggested this is normal as a game approaches release — and for Weta, it helped keep some members of the studio employed — but it is risky given the difficulties already encountered during development, particularly amid the current state of the games industry. Meanwhile, the other half was tasked with building out the studio's next prototype. The Verge has learned this prototype is codenamed 'Groundhog' and is again based on The Lord of the Rings. It is a roguelike, drawing inspiration from the likes of Baldur's Gate and Diablo. In an effort to ready the prototype for the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, California, this past March, where Weta could pitch it to prospective publishers, some employees suggested the crunch culture and overtime hours persisted. 'There's definitely been crunch, and there's definitely still people doing crunch,' one developer told The Verge in January. In February, Weta announced Tales of the Shire's release would be delayed until July 29th, 2025 (a scheduled mobile version for Netflix was also canceled last year). The Verge understands this is to ensure quality assurance has been performed on all platforms, with the Switch port being particularly tricky to get running smoothly. In addition, The Verge has learned that work on Tales of the Shire DLC was paused in February with no certainty the game will receive content updates at all. In a February 21st memo to staff, Kelly Tyson, the general manager of product at Weta Workshop wrote that Private Division (at the time, codenamed Vero) would deliver a part payment recognizing the studio's DLC efforts, but 'all post-launch content decisions have been delayed until the games in market performance is determined.' Tyson also stated there was a 'funding gap' and the studio would attempt to reduce costs by moving all staff to a four-day workweek, with a 20 percent pay cut for a period of three months. The February 21st email called this a 'temporary change,' adding that the goal is to 'keep as many people employed as possible.' The change was reversed in mid-May, ahead of schedule, as the studio worked to polish its Groundhog prototype in the hopes of signing a publisher. Those familiar with development have said it feels like a last ditch, all-in effort to keep the studio going, and The Verge understands there are multiple publishers interested in the game. With Tales of the Shire ready for release, Weta's Game Studio now must fight for survival in an industry trying to find its feet after two tumultuous years. Investment is much harder to come by, redundancies and closures have become commonplace. So what's next? Lawrence is charged with setting the studio's direction going forward, but there are concerns, internally and externally, about his plans. An executive vision for the game studio, revealed to The Verge in a leaked PowerPoint presentation, is that Weta will become a 'work for hire creative services business.' The presentation, delivered in late 2024, suggests the company will 'seek to have worked on five games' over the next five years. It hopes to release at least three, including Tales of the Shire. One staff member said the feeling in the studio was that this presentation was not aimed at staff but seemed to be designed to appease Weta's executives. According to a senior figure in the Australian games industry with knowledge of the strategy, this is a recipe for continued overtime and poor working conditions. 'I, and the wider industry, would love to know how Weta plans to release five games in five years at AAA quality with an A budget, without implementing crunch or exploiting their staff,' they said. We asked Weta to explain this strategy, but it did not respond. Despite the challenging environment and burnout, Tales of the Shire is still scheduled to release in July. When I asked current and former staff their enduring memories of making the game, there was a common theme: they truly care about the world they've built. Several reiterated how dedicated the development team was, striving to live up to the franchise's lofty expectations. 'I could genuinely spend hours playing my own video game, which is probably kind of rare for a developer to say,' one developer said. 'It should be a time of celebration.' In between it all, they've had to contend with periods of crunch and circumstances beyond their control. 'It is in spite of Weta Workshop's leadership that there's a video game made,' said a senior member of the development team. 'It should be a time of celebration, but there's so many people who won't get to celebrate their wins because of this fight against the odds.' Many staff said working at Weta was a lifelong dream — a career highlight. There was excitement about joining a project like Tales of the Shire, especially for those who grew up as fans of The Lord of the Rings. But some of those feelings have eroded. 'The personal pride I have felt about this company is just completely tarnished,' said one former employee. Without significant changes, current and former staff believe the problems experienced developing Tales of the Shire are destined to repeat. 'I don't have a lot of faith in what work we will have after [Tales of the Shire],' one staff member said. Another mentioned ongoing communication and management issues have been flagged with senior Weta members multiple times, but they feel as if the complaints have largely been ignored or dismissed. In the meantime, the uncertainty around the future of Weta Workshop's Game Studio and its next project has left some looking for an exit. But staff believe there is a way to break the curse and buck the trends of the past two years: invest in, and trust, people. To quote one experienced developer: 'I genuinely think that if Weta Workshop nurtured the brilliance in the studio, they could just sit back and profit.' Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All by Jackson Ryan Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Entertainment Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. 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Irish Times
5 days ago
- Business
- Irish Times
What do Ireland's best paid chief executives earn?
In terms of pay, 2024 was a bumper year for the 21 long-standing bosses of the largest Irish publicly quoted companies, driven by big bonuses paid by companies that exited the Dublin stock market and moved their primary listings to New York . Figures compiled by The Irish Times show that their average pay package rose by 31 per cent to €4.36 million last year. Peter Jackson , chief executive of New York-listed gambling giant Flutter Entertainment , led the way with a package worth the equivalent of €18.9 million. He is followed by Tony Smurfit , the head of packaging giant Smurfit Westrock , with remuneration of €12.7 million, and Albert Manifold , the former chief executive of building materials group CRH , with earnings of €11.6 million. Both of those companies are now listed in New York and have quit the Dublin stock market. All of the 21 top earners in our analysis for 2024 were men. Former Glanbia chief Siobhán Talbot and ex Ires Reit chief executive Margaret Sweeney fell out of this year's table, having stepped down from their respective posts. READ MORE The median chief executive compensation package, which gives a better picture of the pay landscape as it eliminates the distorting effects of outliers on the pay scales, rose by 16 per cent to €2.53 million. That's 56 times the median salary in Ireland, of about €45,000. Variable pay was fuelled across the board by rising share prices – in a year in which the Iseq All-Share Index rose 11.3 per cent and the FTSE All-World index soared 12.3 per cent – and corporate earnings. The figures include chief executives of Irish companies listed on the Iseq 20 index in Dublin with a market value of more than €100 million, the FTSE 350 in London, and groups that have moved their main listings to Wall Street in recent years – and saw their remuneration plans beefed up by their boards to fit in with the locals. Each chief executive had been in their role for at least two years at the end of their company's latest annual financial period. The pay outlook for top Irish executives for this year remains relatively positive – for now at least. The Iseq All-Share index has gained almost 19 per cent so far this year, having soared by more than a third since April 2nd when global markets baulked at US president Donald Trump's 'Liberation Day' tariffs announcement. The FTSE All-World is up almost 12.5 per cent. However, analysts have been busy taking red pens to their earnings growth estimates for companies globally in recent months as Trump's erratic trade policies and warnings on tariffs weigh on consumer and business confidence. The consensus for earnings per share (EPS) growth across companies listed on the pan-European Stoxx 600 index is currently about 2 per cent for 2025, according to London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) data. That's down from 8 per cent pencilled in at the start of the year. US earnings growth projections have fallen back to about 9 per cent from 15 per cent. The result of EU trade talks with the US in the coming days, amid efforts to avert Trump's threatened 30 per cent charge on most European imports kicking in from August 1st and likely retaliatory action from Brussels , will play big role in the bonus packages of leaders of listed companies. [ ECB holds rates as Trump tariff talks go to the wire Opens in new window ] Peter Jackson , chief executive of Paddy Power's parent, Flutter Entertainment, was the best paid Irish boss last year on the most widely recognised remuneration measure that includes basic pay, cash bonuses, stock awards under long-term incentive plans (LTIPs), pension contributions and other benefits. Flutter's remuneration committee lowered Jackson's basic salary by 13.5 per cent to $1.39 million (€1.18 million). However, this was in order to significantly increase the chief executive's potential performance-related remuneration to, as Flutter said in its annual report, align with US market practices – after it moved its main listing in May 2024, ditching its Irish quotation in the process. The 49-year-old – who has seen Flutter's market value increase more than fourfold to over $53 billion under his leadership since early 2018, driven by the acquisition of sports betting company FanDuel in the US – saw his total remuneration soar 185 per cent last year to $22.2 million, or €18.9 million. It was turbocharged by $17 million of stock awards. Amy Howe, chief executive of FanDuel, received $11.5 million. The group's earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) jumped 26 per cent last year to $2.36 billion. Flutter's transfer of its main stock quotation to the US, home to the most liquid stock markets in the world, has left it contending with even more revealing pay disclosure rules brought in by the Securities and Exchange Commission in late 2022. They require listed companies to outline a new pay calculation, known as compensation actually paid (CAP), which includes the effect of recent changes in the value of current and potential stock holdings. Under that measure, Jackson's package came to an eye-watering $37.9 million. [ Smurfit Westrock merger: CEO Tony Smurfit's pay package recorded as €19.5m Opens in new window ] Smurfit Westrock's chief executive, Tony Smurfit , also benefited from a new and improved LTIP as he pushed through a deal to create the world's largest cardboard box-maker by merging Smurfit Kappa and US rival Westrock – and holding on to Westrock's New York listing. The group, which traces its roots back to Tony's grandfather, Jefferson Smurfit, buying a small box-making business in Rathmines in the 1930s, has a market capitalisation of almost $25 billion. Smurfit's pay jumped 134 per cent last year to $14.9 million (€12.7 million), fuelled by stock awards. The figure came to $21.3 million when the accounting treatment of existing stock options was tweaked after the July 2024 merger. Under the CAP metric, the Smurfit boss of a decade had a total remuneration package of $27.9 million last year. Albert Manifold , the usual top earner among Irish chief executives in recent times, dropped to third place in his final year in charge of CRH, the building materials and services giant that also delisted from Dublin in 2023 and chose the Big Apple for its main stock quotation. His remuneration dipped 1.3 per cent to $13.6 million . On a CAP basis, it amounted to $39.6 million – driven by the company's strong stock performance during the year. Manifold was named this week as incoming chairman of UK oil giant BP . His successor at CRH, Jim Mintern, could receive total remuneration of up to $14.8 million this year if the company hits various performance and share price targets set down by the board. Kerry Group, which agreed to sell its dairy processing business in two phases late last year, might have only delivered 3.4 per cent sales volume growth in its key taste and nutrition business in 2024. However, its chief executive, Edmond Scanlon , enjoyed a 32 per cent hike in his remuneration, to €6.04 million, helped by earnings per share rising almost 10 per cent and the company's stock price rallying 19 per cent. In fifth spot was Steve Cutler , the chief executive of Nasdaq-listed clinical trials company Icon. His remuneration declined by 34 per cent to the equivalent of €4.83 million in a year in which the group's stock lost more than a quarter of its value as the wider sector was hit by drugmakers dramatically cutting their research and development (R&D) budgets amid high interest rates. Eamonn Rothwell , head of Irish Ferries owner Irish Continental Group (ICG) and a 19 per cent shareholder in the business, saw his total remuneration jump 42 per cent to €4.47 million. Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), which advises large investors on annual general meeting (AGM) votes, urged investors to reject the ICG's remuneration plan at the group's latest meeting in May. The recommendation was in line with its stance on a number of previous occasions and centres on the same argument: a lack of clarity from ICG over the targets on which the chief executive's bonus is based. Almost 15 per cent of shareholders voted against the remuneration policy at the meeting. The biggest decliner on the pay front was Kingspan chief executive Gene Murtagh , whose total package slid by 42 per cent to €2.53 million, mainly as a result of a drop in total shareholder returns as the insulation group's shares fell. ISS had something to say about Cavan-based Kingspan's new pay policy, which will mean future executive salaries increase by 9 per cent and maximum bonuses rise to 200 per cent of base pay from 150 per cent. The policy also raises maximum annual long-term incentive plan awards to the chief executive to 450 per cent of salary from 300 per cent. [ Markets climb on back of Japan-US trade deal signing Opens in new window ] Still, ISS said qualified support was warranted at Kingspan's AGM in May, given the company's growth since executive incentives were last subject to material changes six years ago. Revenue, earnings per share, employee numbers and scale have grown significantly since then. Some 97.5 per cent of shareholders supported the plan. Bank of Ireland chief executive Myles O'Grady secured a 28 per cent pay increase last year, to €1.37 million. This was driven by €238,000 of stock – the equivalent of 25 per cent of basic salary – being awarded to the banker by the board. This was the result of the last Government lifting pay restrictions at Bank of Ireland after the State sold its remaining shares in the group in late 2022. The fixed share allowance is not tied to any performance conditions and, therefore, gets around an ongoing Government ban on bonuses above €20,000. The allowance is set to rise to 50 per cent of O'Grady's €950,000 base salary this year, before doubling, again, to 100 per cent in 2026. AIB and PTSB are widely expected to introduce fixed-share allowance schemes for top executives in time, after Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe removed restrictions on fixed pay in both banks last month. Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary qualified in May for share options worth more than a net €100 million to the businessman after shares in the carrier closed at over €21 for 28 consecutive days. However, the 64-year-old will have to stay at Ryanair until the end of July 2028 to collect what is on track to be one of the largest such payouts in European corporate history. [ Ryanair profits more than double to €820m as it threatens challenge to Dublin Airport night-flight limit Opens in new window ] O'Leary's reported annual remuneration in recent years has included accounting charges relating to the potential cost of the massive options plan. His package fell 18 per cent last year to €3.83 million as the company took a smaller charge. O'Leary has also taken some of his existing chips off the table in recent months, raising €45.5 million by selling shares in Ryanair in two transactions – one in early June and one this week. The stock sold accounted for just 4.3 per cent of the chief executive's stake in the Irish airline as of the end of March. The chief executive remuneration packages of Irish companies that have shifted their main listings to Wall Street may have become more like what you'd expect for US companies. The median total compensation of S&P 500 chief executives last year was $17.1 million, according to a study from the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance. However, the cream of the crop are in another league altogether when compared with their Irish counterparts. The top-earning chief executive globally last year was Jim Anderson , head of Pennsylvania-based Coherent Corp, the maker of high-precision lasers and light-based tools used in science, medicine and industry, according to executive intelligence company Equilar. His total package came to $101.5 million, almost entirely made up of stock awards. His basic salary was just $81,538. The new chief executive of out-of-sorts coffee chain Starbucks, Brian Niccol , hired in September in the hope he can replicate the turnarounds he led at Taco Bell and Chipotle, was given a stock-laden compensation package totalling $95.8 million, putting him in second position. Larry Culp , who became chief executive of General Electric (GE) in 2018 and went to split the former unwieldy conglomerate into three companies, secured an $87.4 million package in 2024 as chief executive of GE Aerospace, one of the three and legal successor to the original GE. The pot included a $50 million stock bonus that will be paid out if he hits certain financial targets through the end of 2027. Culp's CAP? A mere $285 million.
Otago Daily Times
6 days ago
- Science
- Otago Daily Times
Sights set on resurrection
It is a bold scenario worthy of a hollywood director. Imagine the camera rising to an extreme long shot, revealing a dramatic landscape dotted with large flightless birds. Genetic engineering firm Colossal Biosciences is offering a hint that one day this image will become less film fiction and more scientific fact. It recently announced plans to resurrect the extinct South Island giant moa in collaboration with the Ngāi Tahu Research Centre, film-maker Sir Peter Jackson, scientist Paul Scofield and the University of Canterbury. Standing up to 3.6m tall and weighing 230kg, the giant moa disappeared from Te Waipounamu about 600 years ago, hunted to extinction two centuries after Polynesian settlement. Colossal will work closely with the Ngāi Tahu Research Centre to integrate mātauranga Māori, traditional knowledge, in its approach, providing for indigenous leadership in scientific innovation. Ngāi Tahu Research Centre director Prof Mike Stevens said during the 14th and 15th centuries, moa provided meat for sustenance and bones and feathers for tools and decoration, especially in Te Waipounamu. "The loss of moa, through over-harvesting and habitat modification, was a salutary lesson as to the New Zealand archipelago's 'fragile plenty'." Ngāi Tahu was particularly excited by this project because of the extent to which it enabled Ngāi Tahu to exercise rangatiratanga (leadership) and tikanga (customs) and the potential to bring ecological and economic aspirations into a singular frame. Colossal chief science officer Beth Shapiro said birds were among the most endangered species in New Zealand and around the globe, but had the fewest biotechnological tools available to protect them. "Because of their unique reproductive system, for example, it is not possible to 'clone' birds in the way that Dolly the sheep was cloned, so a new approach is needed to pass edits in DNA to the next generations." As Colossal developed tools for intra-species surrogacy, captive management and re-wilding, each of these technologies would be extendable to other species. "We will create genomic resources for living species that improve our capacity to manage them and participate in ecosystem restoration projects that will benefit living species." Colossal gained worldwide media attention recently when it revealed what it described as the return of the dire wolf, an American predator that had been extinct for more than 10,000 years. Using ancient samples of dire wolf DNA and genetic engineering as well as domestic hounds as surrogate mothers, three dire wolves were birthed. To resurrect the giant moa, Colossal was evaluating two of the closest living relatives of moa as surrogate hosts, the tinamou and the emu, Dr Shapiro said. "This is a long-term project and partnership and we are hopeful that the first chicks will be born within a decade." Whether de-extinction is legally possible within the country's existing biotechnology and environmental laws is something that will require further investigation. As a new concept, as far as she was aware, no country had laws explicitly focused on de-extinct species, Dr Shapiro said. "Our goal is to work with our partners in Aotearoa New Zealand to explore the regulatory frameworks that would apply to our and other conservation work and to develop pathways for these tools to be used to introduce de-extinct species and augment existing conservation work."
New York Post
21-07-2025
- Science
- New York Post
12-foot bird has been gone for 600 years — now scientists want to ‘de-extinct' it
The real big bird returns. A company that claims to have resurrected the dire wolf has unveiled plans to bring back the moa, a long-extinct bird that once towered over people. The company, Colossal Biosciences, claimed it had joined forces with acclaimed 'Lord Of The Rings' director Sir Peter Jackson to de-extinct the ancient avian, the largest species of which stood 12-feet tall and weighed more than 500 pounds, Time reported. This flightless bird reportedly inhabited New Zealand until getting hunted to extinction by Māori settlers around 600 years ago, Livescience reported. Coordinating the ambitious de-extinction campaign is the Ngāi Tahu Research Centre, between the main Māori tribe (iwi) on NZ's South Island and the University of Canterbury in Christchurch. 3 An upland moa skeleton. 'There's a lot of science still to be done – but we can start looking forward to the day when birds like the moa or the huia (an extinct NZ bird with a curved bill) are rescued from the darkness of extinction,' said Sir Peter Jackson. 'Even the journey will bring incredible insights about the history of this land and enrich discussions as to the potential nature of our future here.' Museum of New Zealand 'Some of those iconic species that feature in our tribal mythology, our storytelling, are very near and dear to us,' explained Ngāi Tahu archaeologist Kyle Davis, who is collaborating on the moa's second coming. 'Participation in scientific research, species management, and conservation has been a large part of our activities.' Jackson, an investor in Colossal who helped bring the Ngāi Tahu Research Centre into the fold, explained that the proposed de-extinction is part of efforts to ensure that 'some of the most critically endangered species in Aotearoa/New Zealand are protected for future generations.' Unfortunately, resurrecting the moa will be quite a bit more difficult than bringing his fantasy creatures to life on the big screen. Experts analogized the process to that of the dire wolf, a long-dead species of canid that scientists resurrected by harvesting DNA from fossil specimens and then filling in the genetic gap with a gray wolf genome — like how frog DNA was used to engineer dinosaurs in 'Jurassic Park.' Bringing back the moa is decidedly more challenging as the moa is far more removed from its closest living relatives, emus and a chicken-like bird called the tinamou, than the dire wolf is from the gray wolf. Whereas dire wolves only split from modern wolf-like canids — the group that includes gray wolves — around 5.7 million years ago, the common ancestor of the moa and tinamou lived 58 million years ago, while the moa and emu predecessor lived 65 million years ago. During their 'time apart,' the moa developed a lot of unique traits that are difficult to duplicate. 3 Colossal Biosciences is currently working to resurrect the woolly mammoth as well. Courtesy of Colossal To achieve this feat of genetic engineering, the team plans to aims to sequence and reconstruct the genomes of all nine extinct moa species, while also sequencing high-quality genomes of their aforementioned relatives. The team will then use precursors to sperm and egg cells to Frankenstein a 'surrogate bird' from living species and then genetically alter it to resemble a moa. They plan to introduce the edited calls into the embryonic tinamou or emu inside an egg, after which the cells will hopefully migrate to the embryo's gonads, changing them so that the females produce eggs and the males produce moa sperm. In theory, that hatchling will then grow up, mate and produce moa chicks. As of yet, the team is still in the process of selecting said surrogate, although the emu's size — they can grow up to 6 feet 2 inches tall — makes it a more suitable surrogate than the comparatively runty tinamou, per the researchers. 3 Colossal Biosciences 'brought back' dire wolves using a primordial stew with gray wolf DNA. Colossal Biosciences / Business Wire Unfortunately, the moa egg is also a lot bigger than an emu egg, so this could present another challenge if they were to use the latter as the incubation chamber in which to hatch the hybrid bird. 'A South Island giant moa egg will not fit inside an emu surrogate, so Colossal will have to develop artificial surrogate egg technology,' said Nic Rawlence, director of the Otago Palaeogenetics Lab at the University of Otago in New Zealand and a critic of the moa plan. Colossal's chief science officer, Beth Shapiro explained that they're exploring 'different strategies for artificial egg incubation, which will have application both for moa de-extinction and bird conservation work.' Of course, there are several criticisms of the project that were directed at prior resurrection campaigns as well. Critics of the dire wolf project claimed that their so-called dire wolf was still genetically a gray wolf with increased size and a white coat. Rawlence even believes that 'genetically engineering specific genes in an emu to match a moa could have dire developmental consequences.' Beth Shapiro told Live Science that animal welfare was a priority, explaining, 'We thoroughly evaluate health risks of any proposed edit before selecting them for our final list of edits.' Jackson believes the project has exciting potential when it comes to reviving lost species. 'There's a lot of science still to be done – but we can start looking forward to the day when birds like the moa or the huia (an extinct NZ bird with a curved bill) are rescued from the darkness of extinction,' he said. 'Even the journey will bring incredible insights about the history of this land and enrich discussions as to the potential nature of our future here.' The moa isn't the only animal Colossal plans to add to its menagerie of long-dead creatures. The biotech firm has also targeted the woolly mammoth for de-extinction — and is a step closer to its goal after engineering a critter called the woolly mouse.
