Tuesday, July 14, 2009

DO YOU THINK THE POOR GUY WILL GET ALONG OKAY?


x-GM boss Wagoner gets $10M in retirement

Automaker, fresh out of bankruptcy, took $50 billion in government aid

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updated 5:13 p.m. PT, Tues., July 14, 2009
DETROIT - Former General Motors Corp. Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner will retire Aug. 1 with a pension and benefit package the automaker valued at more than $10 million.
Wagoner, 56, who was ousted by the Obama administration on March 30, will get $1.64 million in benefits annually for each of the next five years, plus an annual pension of $74,030 for the rest of his life, according to company documents filed Tuesday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Wagoner, who spent 32 years with the company, can also choose to cash out his company-provided life insurance policy at $2.6 million, according to the filing.




The benefits are worth about half the $22.1 million value that the company placed on Wagoner’s retirement package at the end of 2008.
The package is far smaller than those afforded to many other retiring large-company CEOs.
Stan O’Neal, ousted from Merrill Lynch in 2007 after the investment bank reported a huge quarterly loss, walked away with $161.5 million in stock, options and retirement benefits. Walt Disney Co. directors awarded a $140 million severance package to Michael Ovitz at the end of his brief stint as president of the entertainment company. And Hewlett-Packard Co. granted more than $42 million in cash, stock and other benefits to Carleton “Carly” Fiorina after she was ousted as CEO in 2005.
Wagoner has remained on the GM payroll since his ouster, but he had been working for $1 per year. Company spokeswoman Renee Rashid-Merem said GM disclosed last year that it had annual pensions for top executives by two-thirds.
GM has received $50 billion in U.S. government loans. On Friday, GM emerged from a 40-day stay in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection with its best assets moving to a new company called General Motors Co. The U.S. government owns more than 60 percent of the new company, with hopes of selling stock to get some of its investment back, perhaps as soon as next year.
Wagoner’s ouster came at the hands of former Obama administration autos task force leader Steven Rattner, as the administration rejected a GM restructuring plan and ordered deeper cuts.
Wagoner earned $14.9 million last year at GM, although $11.9 million of that was in the form of stock and options which are now worthless.
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