WaMu execs could get cash severance totaling $38 million

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Friday, September 26, 2008 - 5:49 PM PDT
WaMu execs could get cash severance totaling $38 million
Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle) - by Greg Lamm

http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2008/09/22/daily36.html

Alan Fishman, the CEO of Washington Mutual Inc. for only a few weeks before the Seattle-based thrift failed, would be entitled to $19.1 million in severance and bonus pay.

Two other top WaMu executives have clauses in their employment agreements that would also pay them a total of $19 million in cash severance if they are terminated by JPMorgan Chase & Co.

WaMu was seized by federal regulators and sold to JPMorgan Chase & Co. Sept. 25.

According to a WaMu filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Fishman, who replaced Kerry Killinger as WaMu CEO on Sept. 8, signed an agreement that would pay him a cash severance of $11.6 million if he is terminated this year or resigns. He also would be allowed to keep his $7.5 million signing bonus.

The WaMu executive with the biggest termination package is Stephen Rotella, president and chief operating officer, who is entitled under his current employment agreement to a cash severance of $12.7 million if he is terminated or quits with “good reason.”

Meanwhile, CFO Thomas Casey would receive a cash severance of $6.3 million if he is fired or quits with good reason.

Both Rotella and Casey also could receive millions more in non-cash severance compensation under their employment agreements.

[Wapsie B]

1. Those severance packages need to be garnished.

Enough of this running a company into the ground and getting away with a golden parachute. If a senior manager helps to create a better company by all means reward them. But not in cases like this. This shit is fucked up and it's got to stop.

[rzemanfl]

2. This is why these fuckers felt free to run their companies into the

ground. We have been so fucked over by these bastards it is incredible-we could have turned the system over to the Mafia, their severance packages are abrupt, cheap and permanent, while their business practices are no more crooked.

[valerief]

3. Well, they deserve it. They're rich people. They deserve to be richer, no matter what.

:sarcasm:

[redqueen]

4. We have to find a way to nullify those agreements.

They're given that income because it's stated in a contract.

Grrr...