New Merrill boss Thain gets $15 million bonus (for six weeks on the job)

[UpInArms]

Source: Reuters

NEW YORK, Nov 16 (Reuters) - Merrill Lynch & Co Inc's new Chief Executive John Thain will receive a $15 million bonus this year and 1.8 million stock options, the company said on Friday.

Thain, former leader of NYSE Euronext (NYX.N: Quote, Profile, Research), will receive the cash bonus from Merrill in recognition he will not receive a bonus this year from NYSE, Merrill said. His base salary will be $750,000.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSWEN264720071116

[merwin]

1. Poor guy not getting a bonus from NYSE, so Merrill Lynch is being generous enough

to cap off his $750k salary with a $15m bonus.

I wish my bonuses were 20 times my salary.

[UpInArms]

2. and that move to Merrill Lynch was so good too! - NYSE's bonus is only $5 mil

NYSE to pay new CEO $1 mln salary; up to $5 mln bonus in '08

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- NYSE Euronext (NYX) will pay in-coming Chief Executive Duncan Niederauer a $1 million annual salary and a 2008 bonus of up to $5 million, according to a regulatory filing by the exchange operator. The bonus will be split evenly between cash and equity and the form of equity will be determined by the board's human resource and compensation committe, the NYSE explained. The performance criteria for Niederauer's bonus will be set each year by the board, the company added in the filing.

[Canuckistanian]

3. What do you have to do to get a job like that?

A PhD in back-stabbing? Seminars in corporate ladder-climbing? Knowing what to kiss... and when?

Who are these people?

[depakid]

4. "Who are these people?"

Many of them are sociopaths.

Snakes in suits.

http://www.snakesinsuits.com/

[Canuckistanian]

6. That's a good point.

Just watch the documentary "The Corporation". When it comes to profits, they're totally amoral.

[RavensChick]

13. Sad but true.

The suits who work in the Federal govt. are just as bad if not worse. Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.

[leaninglib]

12. Make your company a lot of money.

[YankmeCrankme]

15. Well, he didn't make the company any money.

And the previous one got over $100 million bonus and he lost the company an enormous amount of money. So, that shoots down your suggestion.

[leaninglib]

16. Well, if that's the case, the shareholders deserve to loose money.

Are you suggesting that companies are in business to loose money?

[brentspeak]

19. Wait. Stop. Rewind. Who suggested that "companies are in the business of 'loosing' money?"

The issue here is that incompetent executives are getting showered with dollars for doing a terrible job. And this new guy, Thain, is getting a ton of dough for not doing any job of any kind in the first place. So, where the hell did you get the idea that the previous poster, who had pointed these things out, had suggested that "companies are in the business of 'loosing' money?"

[leaninglib]

22. Wait. Stop. Re-read. I was just asking a question. I will ask you one as well.

Are you suggesting that Merrill's shareholders (or Merrill’s managers), believe that it is a good idea to "shower incompetent executives with many $ for doing a terrible job?"

If not, don't you believe that this issue is best left to those who own or mange Merrill?

[brentspeak]

23. You asked a nonsensical question of the previous poster

And also made a nonsensical statement: "The shareholders deserve to loose their money."

Why would Merrill Lynch's shareholders deserve to "loose" their money because the company's executives are being over-compensated for shoddy and/or non-existent service?

I'm still waiting for an answer to my previous post.

[leaninglib]

27. Merrill's shareholders own Merrill. As such, they are ultimately responsible for calling the shots.

They get to decide who the company's officers will be. If they choose a bad CEO, CFO, or whatever and fail to correct the problem, they will have made a bad decision. Bad decisions will cause a company to LOOSE money.

Since you stated that is "nonsensical" for Merrill's shareholders to loose this money, who should loose it? Me? You? The federal government? You are not suggesting that companies be allowed to pass their losses on to the taxpayers are you?

As far answering your previous post goes, I told you that I was simply asking a question.

[UpInArms]

29. in a perfect world - the shareholders would have a major say-so

in the compensation packages of the executives. In the real world - those decisions are made by the Board of Directors, most of whom sit on the boards of the corporations or in the CEOs chairs of the other's corporations - this is the good-old-boy network behaving its very worst.

[leaninglib]

31. Yes, but shareholders get to decide who sits on the BOD.

So, like I said before, they are ultimately responsible for choosing the management team.

I agree that some of the compensation packages appear to be irresponsible. But who, if not the owners of the company, is responsible for correcting these problems?

[UpInArms]

33. with a bulk of shares being held by

investment houses - the BoD is rather a rigged game also.

Hard to know what to do - I think more people should tailor their investments with a bit of knowledge and not just let their brokers make the bulk of their decisions on stock picks

here's a nice starting place:

www.karmabanque.com

[brentspeak]

30. Holy cow...

:eyes:

You have a talent for fabricating other people's statements and opinions.

I never stated that it is "'nonsensical' for Merrill's shareholders to loose this money." I did say, however, that your comments and questions were nonsensical.

I did say that it's stupid for Merrill's executives to be paid insane amounts of money for a job ineptly done/not done at all. Since I stated that these inept execs don't deserve their compensation in the first place, your question to me about who I think should be paying for this compensation again make zero sense.

Also: shareholders don't choose a company's CEO or CFO; they choose a company's board of directors, and the individual shareholder's vote power is usually dependent on the number of shares he or she owns. The board chooses the executive management team. Therefore, average Joe shareholder has very little say over who ultimately runs the company.

[leaninglib]

32. No fabrication here--you wrote what you wrote.

I said that Merrill's shareholders should loose money if their company does poorly. And while that statement makes sense to most people, you said that statement was "nonsensical." :shrug:

You are correct with respect to the "average Joe shareholder;" however, the shareholder who has a 50% position, or even a 10% position, has quite a bit to say about how the company is run.

[YankmeCrankme]

24. I wasn't suggesting that companies should lose money.

How you got that from my post is beyond me.

I was replying to your response about how you get a job that can pay you a $15 million bonus after only 6 weeks on the job and you said, "make the company a lot of money". Well, the whole point of this thread illustrates that you don't have to make your company a lot of money to get a job like that since he hasn't made the company any money and the person he replaced actually lost the company an enormous amount of money and was rewarded handsomely for doing so.

I feel bad that I have to repeat myself, but you don't seem to get the point that your suggestion doesn't address reality.

It seems that Merrill's managers, and others like them, don't necessarily care how the company does, because they know that they will get rewarded either way. The fact that they have these golden parachutes and routinely vote to reward themselves no matter how poorly they do their job tells me so. If they weren't given such bountiful golden parachutes or assigned bonuses for non-performance or doing an incompetent job and were punished economically they might be more careful about making bad business decisions that hurt the company's bottom line. It is an example of the foxes guarding the hen house, so no, I don't believe the issue is best left to those that manage Merrill.

[leaninglib]

26. Okay, I stand corrected.

If you haven't had to the opportunity to make your company a lot of money, you must have a track record that suggests you will.

The owners of the company (shareholders) have the right to run their company as they see fit. If they want to give away golden parachutes and pay unrealistic salaries, it is their business, not mine or yours.

But hiring incompetent managers is not in their best interest and if they get it wrong, it is their responsibility to make the necessary changes. If they don't, the company will suffer and that is simply the nature of bad business decisions.

Since you feel that these decisions shouldn't be made by the folks that run Merrill, who should make them?

[Selatius]

25. Get born into a wealthy family.

Contrary to popular myth, most of the wealthiest people in America today were born into affluence. They then leveraged the inherited wealth into more wealth, in many cases. Yes, there are always notable exceptions to the rule, such as Warren Buffett, the rags to riches story (or should I say "propaganda"?), but for the most part, you get to that level of compensation by being born into a wealthy position.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

28. "The Death of Horatio Alger"- Paul Krugman

Where is this taking us? Thomas Piketty, whose work with Saez has transformed our understanding of income distribution, warns that current policies will eventually create "a class of rentiers in the U.S., whereby a small group of wealthy but untalented children controls vast segments of the US economy and penniless, talented children simply can't compete." If he's right--and I fear that he is--we will end up suffering not only from injustice, but from a vast waste of human potential.

Goodbye, Horatio Alger. And goodbye, American Dream.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040105/krugman

[alstephenson]

5. Why do the Board of Directors of these corporations

keep approving these ridiculous salaries/bonuses/severance packages???

[Scooter24]

7. Because BOD's of major fortune-500 companies are filled

with executives just like the ones getting these bonuses. It's a pretty exclusive club.

[sam sarrha]

8. because then the CEO approves theirs.. simlpe.. isnt that a RICO rip off of share holders

[Tab]

9. The only possibility I have of getting a bonus like that

is if my company decides to hand out lottery tickets.

[sam sarrha]

10. dubya got $12.5 million chipped in from the other investors of the sale of the team, just cause he

was such a nice guy.. and he only had $650,00 to invest..

actually it looks like it ended up being illegal campaign contributions, because he ran for political office after that,

i heard his job for the team investors was to keep the drugs flowing and the chicks hot

[aquart]

11. Makes you think their charges and fees are excessive.

Well, it makes me think that.

[Baby Snooks]

14. d-e-r-e-g-u-l-a-t-i-o-n

One of the first sectors that "deregulated" was Wall Street and the SEC is a joke at this point. Particularly in light of Enron.

Most if not all of these boards are filled with conflicts-of-interest and insider trading is most likely the rule instead of the exception. As for SEC rules, they apply to the outsiders, not the insiders. Oh, every once in awhile they will go after a Martha Stewart to make it appear the rules are enforced. But they're not.

And the pay is nice. Where else can you find a job that pays you an enormous sum of money plus stock options just to show up at a board meeting a couple of times a year to rubber stamp whatever the CEO wants?

Personally I think most of these people realize they are going to rot in hell so why not make the devil happy?

[Vinca]

17. Meanwhile, the cleaning lady gets a coupon for a free turkey. nt

[OhioChick]

18. Damn........I'm in the Wrong Field. n/t

[Solar_Power]

20. peanuts -- if gets fired, he'll collect $200 million

wish I was in same situation

[AX10]

21. He will not repair the damage.

He will only make it worse.