Some interesting examples of the high quality reasoning and sterling integrity of the boards of large corporations:
- Nortel, which has been on the ropes since before the 21st century began, paid its outgoing CEO who failed to turn the company around $5 million in severance. Then, they turned around and paid the next savior not only $20.5 million in compensation but another $11.5 to Motorola to free the savior from a non-compete agreement.
- Total compensation for CEOs at the largest companies was up 30% on average last year. How much was your raise? Since 1999, the median compensation of these guys has gone from $1 million to just under $2.5 million. I wonder whether profits had the same exponential growth.
- Belden guaranteed their new CEO stock options worth at least $2.5 million per year for the first three years of his employment.
- Whitehall Jewelers paid $980,000 to their new CEO while she was still working at Penney's.
- The guy who took Newell Rubbermaid down the toilet was paid $4.6 million in severance although he had no employment contract.
- Paxson Communications gave its incumbent president a $1.5 million signing bonus.
On the other hand there are a few sensible, generous CEOs:
- The ex-CEO of Pepsi took a salary of $1 per year from 1998 - 2001 and established a scholarship fund for the children of Pepsi workers with the rest of the pay to which he was entitled.
- The head of Best Buy distributes his options to the people on the store floor.
1 comment:
I can't believe how few people get outraged about CEO salaries - after all we (and probably more so the production workers in desperate countries) ultimately pay for them. I read somewhere that the country used to be a diamond (tiny at top and tiny at bottom with a huge middle class) and now it is a pyramid with a large bottom and just a few at the pinnacle. People seem to just love the rich - and don't seem to care who got hurt to make them so.
Post a Comment