Baltimore hands out the hair-shirts

FAT-CAT directors will be unnerved by frugality measures at ailing internet software group Baltimore Technologies, whose senior executive team has been ordered onto the boardroom equivalent of starvation rations.

Recently installed chief executive Bijan Khezri has told top management their salaries will be slashed, and he will lead by example by taking a salary of £150,000, only a third of his predecessor's remuneration.

The 32-year-old former investment banker has agreed to take only one third of the £150,000 in cash, the remainder in company shares at the prevailing market price, and is waiving his claim to any annual bonus. Khezri's entitlement compares with the £454,000 annual gross earned by former incumbent Fran Rooney.

Chairman Peter Morgan, who heads the remuneration committee, has his annual settlement reduced to £40,000 from £90,000, and the non-executive directors' pay is cut to £18,000 from £25,000. Two-thirds of that will be paid in shares. The new pay structure is effective from 1 October.

Khezri, who as a Baltimore executive earned £96,000 last year, is trying to turn the group around after the former FTSE 100 company spent most of its cash on an ill-fated expansion.