|
Companies Promise CEOs Lavish Posthumous Paydays |
|
Wednesday, 11 June 2008 |
|
You still can't take it with you. But some executives have arranged for the next best thing: huge corporate payouts to their heirs if they die in office.
Source: Wall Street Journal Take Eugene Isenberg, the 78-year-old chief executive of Nabors Industries Ltd. If Mr. Isenberg died tomorrow, Nabors would owe his estate a "severance" payment of at least $263.6 million, company filings show. That's more than the first-quarter earnings at the Houston oil-service company. Dozens of other companies offer lush death-benefit packages to their top executives, according to a Wall Street Journal review of federal filings. Many companies accelerate unvested stock awards after a death, which by itself can amount to tens of millions of dollars. Some promise giant posthumous severance payouts, supercharged pensions or even a continuation of executives' salaries or bonuses for years after they're dead. ... Companies often say one goal of their pay packages is to keep executives from leaving. But "if the executive is dead, you're certainly not retaining them," says Steven Hall, an executive-pay consultant in New York. |
