Photos: Getty Images, Reuters, Patrick McMullan
Not so fast there, boys. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chair Henry Waxman isn’t going to let fired Merrill Lynch CEO Stan O’Neal and fired Citigroup CEO Charles Prince III waste away in Margaritaville just yet. He’s organizing a little field trip down to Washington February 7, where he’s holding a hearing as part of an “ongoing investigation into executive pay” related to subprime. The executives will be expected to answer questions about the massive pay and severance packages they received after making a mess of their companies and why they thought they could get away with armfuls of money while leaving the rest of America holding the bag. Yeah. Who do they think they are, anyway? “You collected tens of millions of dollars in payments and other compensation upon your departure from Citigroup,” Waxman wrote in a letter to Prince, according to the Financial News. “You should plan to address how it aligns with the interests of Citigroup’s shareholders and whether this level of compensation is justified in light of your company’s recent performance and its role in the national mortgage crisis.” Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo has also been invited along for the ride, since Bank of America announced they would acquire that ailing beast for $4 billion on Friday, and if Mozilo, thought he was going to go sailing into the sunset scot-free, well, we guess he’s got another think coming.
Congress Panel Wants to Grill Subprime CEOs on Pay [Reuters]
