A seventh vice-president of Investissement Québec (IQ) has left the state-owned company since the arrival of Guy LeBlanc at the head of the institution, in the spring of 2019, learned Le Journal.

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Alexandre Sieber had been with IQ since 2017. Since the summer of 2019, he had held the position of Senior Executive Vice-President, Corporate Financing.

Mr. Sieber left with a severance package of $379,000, the equivalent of nine months' salary and bonuses. In 2020-21, he had received total compensation of nearly $511,000.

“Mr. Sieber has played a central role in establishing IQ's new mandate and in rolling out the company's new strategic directions. Now that the basics are well established and that the lines of business under his responsibility are fully playing their role, his position, as it existed, is no longer justified and has been abolished. He will not be replaced and the management of the business lines under his responsibility will be redistributed to other leaders, ”explained a spokesperson for the institution, Gladys Caron.

By the end of 2019, IQ had fired another IQ vice president, Paul Buron, and paid him a severance package of $425,000, the equivalent of 12 months' compensation.

Mr. Buron, who was responsible for government mandates and programs for a little over two years, had left IQ in the wake of a "reorganization" resulting from a reform put in place by the Minister of the Economy, Peter Fitzgibbon.

Mystery rewards

Since the arrival of Mr. LeBlanc, five other vice-presidents have left IQ: Marie-Josée Lapierre (legal affairs), Iya Touré (mines and hydrocarbons), Mirabel Paquette (communications), Éric Duquenne (international affairs) and André St-Pierre (major accounts).

Two of them did it on their own. The other three were fired and given severance bonuses, but IQ yesterday declined to say who received what, urging Le Journal to make a freedom of information request.

In the fiscal year that ended March 31, the total compensation of IQ's eight highest-paid executives reached nearly $4.5 million. In 2020-2021, seven senior executives shared just over $3.6 million.