NYT Pays Former CEO $24 Million To Go Away; The Paper Made $3 Million Total Over The Last 4 Years
from the something-isn't-adding-up dept
Unlike some, I'm not that up in arms over high CEO pay... if they deserve it. In an open market, if an executive can command top dollar, based on strong performance, I'm all for it. However, if the pay is so totally divorced from performance as to be completely laughable, you have to wonder what's up. Case in point: former NY Times CEO Janet Robinson received an "exit package" of $23.7 million. It was broken down thusly:Robinson gets pension and supplemental retirement income valued at $11.4 million, performance awards of $5.39 million, restricted stock units worth $1.07 million and stock options worth $694,164, according to the company’s proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission today. She will also earn $4.5 million in consulting fees for this year.Now perhaps you can argue that this is well deserved and negotiated. But here's a key data point found in the same article:
The payout to Robinson is equal to about 2.4 percent of the company’s market value of $981.9 million, and exceeds the approximately $3 million the company earned in net income over the past four years. Not included in Robinson’s exit package is her salary of $1 million for 2011, when Times Co. reported a loss $39.7 million.Okay. One argument you can make is that at least the NYTimes made some money over the last four years. But can we ask what kind of "performance awards" would make sense when the award massively exceeds the actual profit of the company? Similarly, what kind of "consulting fees" would make sense when those consulting fees also exceed the profit of the company over the last four years combined?
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Filed Under: ceo pay, executive pay, janet robinson, performance bonus
Companies: ny times
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Early but expensive pullout reward
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=fannie%20mae%20and%20freddie%20mac%20bailout& amp;source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCwQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FFederal_tak eover_of_Fannie_Mae_and_Freddie_Mac&ei=ZoNeT-XPPIWRiALHjq3VBA&usg=AFQjCNHcHa45G1hT_J-nZgAjbh k0LvmyMA
Get used to it: the Washington D.C. gravy train's gonna keep gaining inertia all the way to November...
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Re: Early but expensive pullout reward
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This has been going on since the 70s. But if you want to see bankruptcy bonuses, the reporters at the WSJ have the best story about how disproportionate it is.
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Re: Early but expensive pullout reward
It's called a "contract". They were contractually obligated to pay the BS bonuses. You pay them or a bunch of lawyers when they sue. What choice would you make?
Really, Steve. There's plenty of problems with the current administration, but this isn't one of them. Rake you muck elsewhere.
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Re: Early but expensive pullout reward
Let's all thank the reign of King Bush for putting it in place and implementing it.
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Net/gross
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As for the rest of it, I would say that he had a pretty good contract with some pretty low performance goals.
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What did the NY Times did to get that money? took a loan?
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"The payout to Robinson is equal to about 2.4 percent of the company’s market value of $981.9 million" according to the article. That's still WAY too much, of course. The article says her salary was $1 million in 2011. Assuming she got that much every year, then since she was there for 7 years, her total salary would have been around $7 million. Even excluding the retirement benefits (I don't think you can take away a pension if she's earned it) and the consulting fees (presumably she's doing something to earn this?) they are STILL paying her more than her entire salary for the entire 7 years.
"She will also earn $4.5 million in consulting fees for this year." How is this sane? They're paying her 4.5 times more to be a "consultant" than to be the CEO?
"performance awards of $5.39 million" - here it's fair to use the profits as a comparison. Performance awards for more than the company made in the last 4 years combined? What were the performance bars - don't go bankrupt?
So this brings up the question: WHY are they paying her this? Did they actually sign a contract stating that they would pay her an insane amount if she ever left? Are there REALLY no semi-competent CEO's out there that would be willing to take the job for "only" the salary and retirement benefits the job pays, without a clause that says they must be paid millions to go away?
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Why not, she didn't do anything to improve the company status, she obviously didn't earn anything, if I plant a crop and I almost had it grown but it didn't happen would it be acceptable for me to stop working and demand to be paid anything? of course not I would be on the gutter begging for food and everybody telling me I should work harder, also those are benefits that got beyond her normal salary.
Now to speculate on your question of why they are paying her that amount, I can only believe that she must have some dirt on them because really you don't get to walk away and do such deals without the other side being made up of idiots or without leverage, so probably the NY Times is dirty, because I don't want to believe one of the most influential newspapers in America is full of idiots commanding that organization, but I can't exclude the possibility completely either so I will assume the NY Times is dirty and is doing something so wrong that she got the upper hand on the negotiations, they may be hiding financial information that if it got out would dry their sources of credit, they may be lying about something.
This is how rot looks inside a company.
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Government would subsidize you...but it would have been better if you didn't put any effort in at all in the first place.
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Which the average middle class family is lucky to see/make ONLY half that amount, if that.
I think ONLY $380,000 a year would be a goddamn insane amount in my book. I could live COMFORTABLY off $50,000 a year and I'm still working my way up and make not even half of that amount and I manage to get more than by.
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It all depends where you stand.
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Whatever person that is one thing I can say, it is not the kind of person that is there to make it a success, that is not what motivate those people.
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Obviously....
Secondary payment was for, 'how to try and sneak this under the radar' which forgot to include the 'do not include irrelevant data, like company profits or earnings, in SEC filings about executive compensation'....
Totally worth 5M for the first one, but would have had to fine the consultant 4.5M for the oversight in the second consultation.....
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Re: Obviously....
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/06/opinion/steal-this-column.html?_r=1&ref=thepirateba y
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Another Pathetic Example
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admittedly, they don't seem to be loosing money (mostly, yet) but the customer gets epicly shafted.
i think it's more a case of the elites in general being completely divorced from reality...
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Gotta give her some credit...
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Re: Gotta give her some credit...
He wouldn't know what the free market if it bit him on the ass. The problem with Bain Capital is that it relies on tax loopholes in federal laws to make money.
Mitt Romney used "leveraged buy-outs" which is explained as thus:
The leveraged buy-out firm will put down a fraction of the cost of buying an ailing company. The balance of the transaction is borrowed, but the debt goes onto the books of the target company, not the private equity firm – the struggling company basically finances the lion's share of its own sale.
The target company's debt payments increase significantly, and those debt payments are then written off, reducing its tax burden significantly. This subsidy increases short-term revenues – at the expense of long-term debt – and that, in turn, is paid out in dividends to Bain's investors and a fat stream of management fees that Romney and his partners skimmed off the top.
To get back on topic, there are CEOs that will cause a company to fail intentionally. But the company will lay off workers and make sure to pay the CEO even though their direction lead to the failing of the company. It's quite ridiculous, but even judges (as my previous post in this section can attest) will allow these rules instead of reject them for the business failing.
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asset stripping is also unhelpful.
(usually happened when American interests gained control of significant assets which were only marginally profitable in their own right, if that, but required to allow other things to function properly. such as the railways. the instances of it happening Without American involvement generally are due to people who made their money exploiting the system rather than actually DOING anything... who think NZ should be more like the USA. still not sure how the hell we ended up with John Key as PM when everyone KNEW he was one of these people...)
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Quite often, effects can take years to show.
Companies used to pay CEOs based on current growth and income. So CEO's would take measures that benefited short term growth. You know, like banks making really bad risky investments that in time would crash? But it was ok, because the people who made those decisions cashed out when the banks were showing profits.
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doesn't change how stupid the result is though.
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A very large stock option would be appropriate. Say 10 million options at a $7.50 (currently trading at $6.50) strike price. That way the CEO will have a very large stake in the companies future, if they've bothered to deliver one.
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Everyone Plays Numbers Games
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What sort of pestilence do you have to be to be worth paying 24 million to go away?
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so net net, earnings would be ...
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Re: so net net, earnings would be ...
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ire-warmed
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Small fry compared to Chelsea FC
If you want some insane figures look at what Chelsea Football Club (Soccer) paid to get and then get rid of their recent manager, I think in USD it's just over $75 million.
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