LONDON (Bloomberg) — Cable & Wireless Plc chairman Richard Lapthorne may receive as many as 5.5 million shares, currently worth $22 million, as part of an incentive plan to ensure he remains with the company.Lapthorne will receive the shares if the company's share price remains in the top 10 percent of the FTSE Global Telecoms Index for the next three years, the Bracknell, England-based company said yesterday in a Regulatory News Service statement.

Cable & Wireless, whose phone lines once spanned the British Empire, said last month that full-year profit more than doubled to $174 million on gains at its international and UK businesses. The company is expanding overseas to make up for a drop in traditional voice phone sales.

Lapthorne "put in place the team that has started to turn the business around, so this target should be achievable," said James McCafferty, an analyst at Seymour Pierce in London.

Lapthorne's fixed contract to January 2009 has been replaced with a standard contract with 12 months' notice on either side. His salary remains $386,000 per year and his personal holding of 3.5 million shares will be retained for the duration of his appointment, the company said in the statement.

"I have been very pleased with our progress which has been driven by the new organisational structure and incentive plans," Lapthorne said in the statement. "But there is the potential to create and deliver a lot more value."

The company said last month that a turnaround of its UK business, which includes 3,000 job cuts, is ahead of schedule.