The Wall Street Welcome
Hewlett Packard has a new CEO named Mark Hurd and while the level of enthusiasm is smiles all around at the Board of Directors as well as Wall Street, one wonders about the numbers.
Carly Fiorina’s exit package is still causing enough turbulence to rock all incoming boats.
Does it seem strange to you that CEO salaries are often dwarfed by the negotiated exit parachutes? It does to me. It seems counter-productive to offer such a huge incentive to get yourself fired. We knew about Carly’s $1.4 mil salary, but the $42 million newspaper in which her severance fish was wrapped came as a surprise. She was there a couple years, screwed up the job and got thirty years pay for it. Nice deal. Tidy for everyone but the investors.
Equally, and some would say democratically, we are not privy to Mark’s getting-out-of-town money. But precedents are set by such things and it’s hard to settle the new guy into the chair without either coming up with similar loot or making him (or her) feel neglected…