Outsize Severance Continues for Executives, Even After Failure

[n2doc]

By ERIC DASH
Published: September 29, 2011

The golden goodbye has not gone away.

Just last week, Léo Apotheker was shown the door after a tumultuous 11-month run atop Hewlett-Packard. His reward? $13.2 million in cash and stock severance, in addition to a sign-on package worth about $10 million, according to a corporate filing on Thursday.

At the end of August, Robert P. Kelly was handed severance worth $17.2 million in cash and stock when he was ousted as chief executive of Bank of New York Mellon after clashing with board members and senior managers. A few days later, Carol A. Bartz took home nearly $10 million from Yahoo after being fired from the troubled search giant.

A hallmark of the gilded era of just a few short years ago, the eye-popping severance package continues to thrive in spite of the measures put in place in the wake of the financial crisis to crack down on excessive pay.

more

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/30/business/outsize-severance-continues-for-executives-even-after-failed-tenures.html?_r=1&hp&gwh=FADB38F3B3CE57E3B7C85DAF8F0079B0

[SpiralHawk]

1. "Ha ha. Eat our shorts, you smelly proles." - RepubliCorp, Inc. Execs (R)

"Too bad, and shit, about you smelly American worker proles whose jobs we outsourced. Smirk. Ha ha."

- RepubliCorp, Inc. Execs (R)

[HughBeaumont]

2. Legalized theft.

Must be nice to know no matter WHAT kind of a job you do, you'll be secure in the fact that you'll get a lottery every year, leave WITH a lottery when you get ousted and command even greater lotteries if you do get another position.

Must be freaking NICE.

Are those guillotine blades I hear being sharpened?

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. Nothing new. Golden parachutes are always written into contracts.

The size and amount of those parachutes are increasingly obscene, IMHO.

Often bonuses and parachutes are partially measured in company stock, and a falling market is leveling out some of that value.

[n2doc]

4. kick n/t