The big oil and natural-gas company said Thursday that its 75-year-old CEO will retire at the 2011 annual meeting, and will be succeeded by President Stephen I. Chazen. Mr. Irani will remain executive chairman until the end of 2014. The two executives also will get a “substantially lower” maximum payout under a new long-term compensation plan than they were eligible for in previous plans, according to the company…The CEO-designate isn’t worried about his lower potential pay. During an interview Wednesday, he said that he and Mr. Irani already own a lot of Occidental shares. “You don’t have to worry about either of us eating cat food at home because the comp is going down,” Mr. Chazen said. [WSJ]
Compensation
Amidst News Of Lower Compensation, Occidental President-cum-CEO Addresses, Allays Our Fears
By Bess LevinEarlier we mentioned that after getting his hopes up vis-a-vis earning more than a buck a year, the Citi board had decided its commander in chief would not get a raise from his current salary. Such is not the case. Read more »
Blind Item: Which Hedge Fund Will Pay A Portfolio Manager $50+ Million For Losing 25% In A Year?
By Bess LevinFor the fiscal year ending in June 2009, Yale’s endowment fell 24.6 percent. In that same time period, Chief Investment Officer David Swensen’s salary and benefits totaled $5.3 million, up from $4.3 million in ’07-’08. Some people think this is an outrage. Today University administrators explained the rationale behind Swensen’s package.
On Wall Street or even at other universities, they say, the several million Swensen makes yearly would be a pittance for an investor as renowned as he is. Endowment managers at Harvard have earned as much as $35 million recently, dwarfing Swensen’s and Takahashi’s pay. “Here’s a guy who could make 10 times his salary,” former deputy provost Charles Long said of Swensen last April. “But his goal is to make as much money as he can for Yale.”
Things have been going pretty nicely for Tony Hayward lately. He finally got taken off that bitch of a project his boss had him working on ’round the clock, thereby freeing up his time to really get out there and live life to the fullest, he was able to take in some nice yacht races and his sets at the Laugh Factory‘s latest open mic night went really, really well (NB: with the right execution, an oil spill joke can be quite the crowd pleaser). In fact, he was actually kicking around the idea of quitting his job entirely, and truly giving that stand-up a shot. Sure, it would be hard at first– this is something he’s never done this professionally, and it would be a while before he could begin to even think about possibly making a living off of it. But, he did have a nice golden parachute to look forward to, which could help the gap period before he really made it big. Or at least he thought he did. So this? Was a real kick in the pants. Read more »
CEO’s No One Gives A Rat’s Ass About Bravely Gave The Finger To 2009′s Compensation Trend
By Bess LevinWells Fargo’s John Stumpf. Travelers Cos’s Jay Fishman. Chubb Corp’s John Finnegan. According to the July issue of Bloomberg Markets, all three men “are defying a trend,” by taking home $21.3 million, $20.6 million, and $19.2 million, while many of their fellow CEO’s dialed it down on payday. Why were they able to take such a stand, in the face of populist outrage, Ken Feinberg and the shouts of random passersby that Wall Street S’s major D? Obviously the answer is that nobody gives a crap about these guys. Read more »
Remember, back in the day, when Kenneth Feinberg was named Comp Cop and everyone working at a bailed out company, who were told their asses were about to be capped, threatened to leave if he so much as dared to take a penny of their hard-earned money away? Sure you did, they wouldn’t shut up about it, or the fact that this–this!– was going to be the death of their otherwise phenomenally profitable firms? Anyway, apparently most people were just messing.
Of the 104 senior executives whose pay was set by the federal pay regulator in the last two years, 88 executives, or nearly 85 percent, are still with the companies even though their pay was drastically cut back, according to people briefed on the government data. The relative stability, at least within the executive suite, suggests that a soft job market, corporate loyalty and personal pride helped deter the feared management exodus at the companies hardest hit by the pay rules.
Sure, or maybe it was this. Read more »
Actually, that’ s not entirely fair. Kenneth Feinberg can *try* to renegotiate payments he characterizes as not good for the people. But when it comes down to it? Yeah he can’t do shit. Which is why we suggest K.Fein perform his “look back” while enjoying an herbal refreshment in Jimmy Cayne’s new executive suite (tricked out basement).
Kenneth Feinberg, the Treasury Department’s special master for compensation, will send a letter Tuesday to 419 firms that received TARP funds seeking data on compensation paid to the top 25 executives. The pay review will cover a relatively short period but will capture the 2008 end-of-year bonus season at most large firms.
Mr. Feinberg can’t claw back any pay but can seek to renegotiate any payments he deems “not in the public interest.” He is required to perform the so-called “look back” under the legal statute that created the pay czar.
Michael Lewis: “No Intelligent Person Who’s Sitting On Wall Street Can Think Of Themselves As Anything But Overpaid”
By Bess Levin
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Speaking of Lewis, Janet Tavakoli had a few things to say about him and The Big Short this morning– the book gets the crisis all wrong, and Mike is a “girlie man” and a “eunuch.”
Last week, Goldman Sachs management told an analyst that despite a lower than normal compensation ratio of 36% for 2009, they weren’t sweating people leaving the mothership because relative to everyone other bank on the Street, they’re still making it rain ka-ching! on people’s faces. Slightly arrogant, sure, but not necessarily untrue. Can this same bold claim be made by certain other banks like, say Citi? One guy says yes.
Citigroup is at no disadvantage when it comes to paying employees, the bank’s chief financial officer said on Thursday. The bank was able to pay employees competitively in 2009 and is subject to the same compensation oversight in 2010 as its major competitors, John Gerspach said at a conference hosted by Credit Suisse.
“We’re not fighting with any hands behind our back,” Gerspach said.
Earlier: Bonus Watch ’10: Citi
Goldman CFO David Viniar said today that he has no “magic formula” for pay this year, and that it would depend on a number of factors, including the firm’s performance, competition and mostly “the world around us.”
In the last few years “there’s been some discipline” but bankers “still need to be a lot more thoughtful and sensitive about how they pay themselves.”
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