Richard Fuld: ‘I Was Wrong’In the face of Representative Henry Waxman’s hard heart and perhaps fearing his secret chamber of whips and snares, Lehman CEO Richard Fuld got right down to the business of apologizing this morning.
ByJessica Pressler
white men with money
CEOs Fry at Congressional Hearing!Oh, not really. We’re just exaggerating. That’s what the media does, according to former Citigroup CEO Chuck Prince, Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo, and former Merrill Lynch CEO Stan O’Neal,all of whom who have all offered up the line that the media has “grossly exaggerated” the amounts of their compensation in their testimony in front of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today. “The reality is that I received no severance package,” said O’Neal. This is technically true: but he did recieve $161.5 million in cash, stock and stock options upon his “retirement” in October. Over at Portfolio, Elizabeth Olson is live-blogging the hearing, and she has reported that, among other things, Countrywide Financial CEO Mozilo looks “tan and confident,” but everyone looks totes unhappy. The day started out with a bang: Chair Henry Waxman, who called for the hearing, wondered aloud whether the “hundreds of millions of dollars [the CEOs] were given represent a complete disconnect from reality,” but Republican representative Tom Davis killed his joy by saying that they “should not degenerate into a sanctimonious search for scapegoats.… Punishing individual corporate executives with public floggings like this may be a politically satisfying ritual — like an island tribe sacrificing a virgin to a grumbling volcano.” Indeed. Also, who knew Davis was so creative?
Credit C.E.O. Comp Under Fire, IV [Daily Brief/Portfolio]
white men with money
Angelo Mozilo Earned That Money, and No Commie Quack Is Going to Take It Away From HimAs you may know, Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo, recently deposed Merrill Lynch CEO Stan O’Neal, and recently deposed Citigroup CEO Chuck Prince are scheduled to testify in front of the House and Government Reform Committee tomorrow, having been called by Representative Henry Waxman of California to defend the gigantic paychecks they received precisely as their companies were hemorrhaging billions of dollars in subprime investments. Muckraked got hold of a memo Waxman wrote summarizing the issue for his colleagues, and it is kind of awesome. “During the five-year period from January 2002 through December 2006, the stock of Countrywide, Merrill Lynch, and Citigroup appreciated, and the three CEOs collectively received more than $460 million in compensation,” he wrote. Then, “Any alignment between the compensation of the CEOs and their shareholders’ interests appears to break down in 2007, however.” But the best part is an e-mail from October 2006, wherein Mozilo smacks down shareholders who suggest his $120 million compensation might be a little much.
Quoth the e-mail:
I appreciate your input but at this stage in my life at Countrywide this process is no longer about money but more about respect and acknowledgement of my accomplishments.… Boards have been placed under enormous pressure by the left wing business press and the envious leaders of unions and other so called ‘CEO Comp Watchers’ and therefore Boards are being forced to protect themselves irrespective of the potential negative long term impact on public companies. I strongly believe that a decade from now there will be a recognition that entrepreneurship has been driven out of the public sector resulting in underperforming companies and a willingness on the part of Boards to pay for performance.
That’s right, Angelo. You’ve got to fight those liberal bastards or else they’ll take away everything that is right and good in the world. Now go tell it on the mountain, friend.
[Muckraked via Salon]
