A CEO that Baron can be proud of

What do you say Baron?

 

That would be a good submission for the "There Oughta Be A Law" contest. Company goes broke? Executives get dick.

 

How noble is this really? For all we know he was going to get fired anyway. And since the company is entering bankruptcy any severance package likely would have been somewhat worthless, wouldn't it? You'd be an unsecured creditor at the pack of the back.

 

Not necessarily. Journal Register Company, for instance, declared bankruptcy, paid their creditors about 1/3 of what they were owed, but gave out $1.3 million in bonuses to 31 executives for closing papers and shedding jobs:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/09/business/media/09journal.html

And to answer your question YF, absolutely, this is what should happen to CEOs and executives if they fail. Succeed in that the company puts out a safe product, makes money and treats their employees right, get rewarded. Fail at those, don't get rewarded.

Unfortunately, as the article notes, the failures are usually the ones that get rewarded though. For this guy, it's too bad that he failed. Sounds like someone with some actual integrity, like the Costco CEO who only makes a half-million a year and gets ripped on by Wall Street analysts because his workers make too much money instead of him and his executive buddies.

 

But those people still worked at the paper, no? This story applauded the guy for not taking a severance package which, I think, would turn into an unsecured claim.

 

JRC argued that the execs would leave if they didn't receive their bonuses, and the judge, who was pissed off about it, gave in anyways.

So the one CEO voluntarily left without a bonus. The JRC guys would have also voluntarily left, only they weren't volunteering to give up their bonuses. They just whined that they would take their ball and go home.

 

How about this guy, Baron?

 

"I had one idea that never changed in my mind—that you should use your wealth to help people. I try to live a normal life, the way I grew up," Feeney said. "I set out to work hard, not to get rich."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Feeney

How nice. Someone who actually gets it. Doesn't he know that he's supposed to keep all the money for himself, and then whine that his taxes shouldn't be raised a few percentage points to give his country's soldiers the army they need, instead of the army they've got? Damn do-gooder.

And heck, when he sold the company, he actually ... paid all his workers bonuses out of the sale profits. The nerve of him. Those poor schulbs deserved nothing more than paycuts. They should be happy they even had a job!