Months after being caned by its
shareholders for a dodgy remuneration report, Oxiana has finally admitted it
made a million-dollar mistake but effectively said “too bad”.

As the Ozreports, the gold miner fessed up to undervaluing options granted to its executives
and directors by $1 million, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be handed out.
Instead, Oxiana shareholders will just have to wear a $700,000 write-down in
net profit to account for it.

Oxiana copped a 46% “no” vote from
shareholders – mainly major institutions – on its remuneration report at its
AGM. That sort of protest couldn’t be ignored. It doesn’t promote much faith in
the management when the shareholders understand what the CEO is being paid
better than the board.

According to the annual report, options
granted to CEO Owen Hegarty were worth $77,252 – but yesterday Oxiana admitted
they were really worth $338,173. The
total value of executive and director options had been published at $846,803,
but the second look found that should figure should have been $1,000,120
higher.

One trusts Oxiana knows more about gold
mining than pricing options.