Reed chief quits for private sector role

Reed Elsevier, the scientific journals group at the centre of a row over fat cat pay earlier this year, yesterday said that Derk Haank, its prized head of scientific publishing, is leaving to head up a rival firm in the private sector.

Mr Haank, who has been with Reed for 17 years, will take up the post of chief executive of Springer, the science and publishing business which buy-out firms Cinven and Candover are in the process of acquiring.

Reed courted controversy with the corporate governance lobby earlier this year when it pushed through plans to rebase its share options scheme, which could pay out about £20m to senior directors.

The company introduced the new scheme after an old options arrangement failed to pay executives anything last year because the company failed to hit earnings per share targets set in 2000.

Mr Haank, who was paid £563,240 last year, would have benefited from the new scheme, but has sacrificed the tranche of options by taking the new job at Springer, which he starts in February. His decision to move prompted speculation that this was the first example of an executive quitting a public company to avoid the scrutiny of directors' pay packets.

Mr Haank, who until yesterday headed Reed's science and medical division, denied that the row over his and his colleagues share options had formed part of his decision to move to a private company. "I am never solely motivated by money. Creating a new company and being the driving force in scientific publishing is much more important to me," Mr Haank said.

Cinven and Candover have agreed to buy Bertelsmann's science publishing unit in May.