Cuffe poaches three CBA execs

CBA chief executive David Murray, meanwhile, is under fire over comments that he was not fully aware of the terms of Mr Cuffe's $33 million golden handshake until the merger was completed.

And he has yet to reveal the payout to Greg Perry, the investment brains behind Colonial First State's success. Mr Perry, who left the bank on July 1 last year, ran the funds management operation with Mr Cuffe.

Commonwealth shares yesterday hit three-year lows, falling 57c to $24.58, mainly due to the shares going ``ex" the 69c fully franked dividend.

But the stock is about $10 below last year's high as more questions surfaced about the merits of the $9 billion Colonial acquisition and the bank's profit outlook.

Colonial First State's new chief executive John Pearce last night said he was disappointed to lose the three executives, including First State's chief financial officer Tim Foster. As far as he knew, there were no restrictions on Mr Cuffe poaching staff from his former employer.

Mr Foster will stay on for three months until a replacement is found, while general manager of administration and operations, Hayden King, and general manager of marketing and client services, Jo Wagstaff, are leaving almost immediately.

Mr Cuffe will attempt to bolster Challenger's funds under management and become a more formidable force against the major banks and AMP.

Mr Pearce said the latest losses were not investment staff and remaining investment staff were on retention arrangements.

He denied morale within the organisation was low, amid talk many staff members were unhappy with Mr Murray's handling of the matter.

``Morale is very good. We are having a leadership forum tomorrow or the day after and unanimously people want to go ahead," Mr Pearce said.

``It's obviously a distraction but we will get through it. The important thing for me is to think about the fundamentals and the fundamentals are very strong."

Amid criticism that the bank had singled out Mr Cuffe, a CBA spokesman said the bank would provide more details today on departing payments to Greg Perry, who worked beside Mr Cuffe.

Speculation has been rife that Mr Perry had a broadly similar contract to Mr Cuffe, except that Mr Perry's bonuses were not deferred over a decade to accumulate into one payment last July like Mr Cuffe's.

If this is the case, Mr Perry's payout would be at least $10 million as that was the amount paid to Mr Cuffe as a ``retention" payment.

But CBA has yet to account for the balance of some $30 million provided for Colonial staff contracts at the time of the merger.

Like Mr Murray's own $4.65 million bonus last year, the bank seemed content to leave Mr Perry's remuneration to the release of the next annual report in September.

Mr Murray, who last week described the payment to Mr Cuffe as ``very substantial", has also done very well in the past six years, earning at least $20 million in bonuses, options and share grants since 1997, on top of his base salary over this period rising from $800,000 to $1.55 million a year.