Mayo Schmidt, who helped turn around a struggling Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, will now oversee Hydro One’s move to a public company
Former Viterra president Mayo Schmidt will earn a base salary of roughly $800,000 per year as the new chief executive officer of Hydro One, the Ontario crown utility company that is selling a portion of its equity in an initial public offering next month.
However, his total compensation package could rise to more than $4 million a year if certain conditions are met, according to a preliminary prospectus filed with securities regulators in mid-September.
Hydro One announced in August that it had hired Schmidt, the former president and chief executive officer of Viterra, to oversee the crown utility’s transition to a publicly traded company.
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The Ontario government intends to raise approximately $9 billion by selling off a 60 percent stake in the company.
Schmidt’s compensation package has ruffled feathers among some Ontario taxpayers.
If he meets all of his performance targets, Schmidt in his first year at Hydro One will earn more than three times as much as his predecessor, Carmine Marcello, who earned $1.2 million in 2014.
Last month, Ontario energy minister Bob Chiarelli defended the compensation package, suggesting that performance targets must be met before Schmidt earns his maximum compensation.
David Denison, chair of Hydro One’s board of directors, said Schmidt is the ideal person to lead the company’s transition.
“As the former CEO of Viterra and its predecessor Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, Mr. Schmidt has an admirable track record of leading large scale business transformation and growth while generating value for investors employees and customers alike,” Denison said in a corporate news release.
Over the years, Schmidt has held a number of key management positions at General Mills Inc., before being named president of ConAgra Grain Canada.
In 2000, he was named CEO of the financially troubled Saskatchewan Wheat Pool. A few years later, he became Sask Pool president and went on to spearhead a $2 billion acquisition of Agricore United, a $2.2 billion acquisition of ABB — the former Australian Barley Board — and renamed the new corporate entity Viterra. In December 2012, he oversaw the sale of Viterra to Switzerland based mining and agriculture giant Glencore Plc.
