10 CEOs With Golden Parachutes Of Over $100 Million: GMI

It's not just executive compensation that's on the rise. A very solid number of executives at major corporations have also received payouts that Mother Jones calculates would be equal to the earnings of 203 lifetimes for a median income American.

More than 21 CEOs received severance or "walk-away" packages worth $100 million or more since 2000, a recent report from GMI has found. The report calculated the CEOs severance, or Golden Parachute as it's come to be called, by combining the various forms of compensation executives receive including a year's worth of annual base salary, stock option profits, stock awards, bonuses, benefits and perquisites, pensions and other deferred compensation. All told, the golden parachutes of the 21 CEOs were worth a combined $4 billion.

While executive compensation has been the focus of criticism, the report contends that the purpose of predetermining such high compensation packages is twofold. First, to protect a CEO from financial repercussions should the soundest possible decision lead to job loss, and second to secure a lasting retirement so decisions are made based on the long-term health of the company.

But that reasoning could be perverted at such high levels, GMI says."Too many golden parachutes and too many retirement packages are of a size that clearly seems only in the interest of the departing executive," the report reads.

Overall, CEOs have been some of the big winners since the financial crisis. Indeed, compensation for chief executives now exceeds pre-recession levels, according to Equilar. Their pay rose by between 27 and 40 percent in 2010 alone, according to one report. Over that same period, the average American worker's income rose by only 2.1 percent.

Along with the average worker, Uncle Sam may too be feeling slighted by the country's Big Kahunas. A fourth of the 100 highest-paid CEOs reportedly took home more money in compensation than their corporations paid in income taxes in 2010. It's not just the executives at major corporations receiving big money either. Chief Operating Officers, as well as CEOs of nonprofit interest groups saw paychecks well beyond the seven figure mark.

Could things soon change? Executive paychecks in 2011 are expected to come in about 30 percent lower than the year before, the Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders don't seem to mind the recent trends. Only 36 of 2,225 companies had shareholders vote in opposition to CEO compensation levels, Forbes reports.

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Comments

[aword]

03:30 AM on 02/09/2012

whoops I miss phones

[aword]

03:29 AM on 02/09/2012

the things that are keeping the middle class down.. 4 were phama/ health care 2 were gas/ electric and than one banks.

[BeIntelligent]

10:14 AM on 02/04/2012

3 of the top ten = Big Pharma.

[BeIntelligent]

10:12 AM on 02/04/2012

$100 million on departure, not even talking about huge salaries every year before that. Enough for children of children of children of children etc. etc. to be born into enormous privilege: trust funds; ski chalets; trips to the Riviera . . .the best food, education, and exercise; while the rest of us toil, and toil, and toil; eat bad food; worry over our children's educations in bad schools; struggle to keep the house in basic repair . . . We have achieved Dystopia. Or Third World status. We're not a developing country, though. We're an Undeveloping country.

[4TJefferson]

01:12 PM on 01/28/2012

I think these are the top 21 Golden Chutes...

General Electric John F. Welch Jr. 1981-2001 $417,361,902
Exxon Mobil Corp. Lee R. Raymond 1993-2005 $320,599,861
UnitedHealth Group William D. McGuire 1991-2006 $285,996,009
AT&T Edward E. Whitacre Jr. 1990-2007 $230,048,463
Home Depot Inc. Robert L. Nardelli 2000-2007 $223,290,123
North Fork Bank John A. Kanas 1977-2006 $214,300,000
Merck & Co., Inc./Schering-Plough Fred Hassan 2003-2009 $189,352,324
IBM Louis V. Gerstner Jr. 1993-2002 $189,005,929
Pfizer Inc. Hank A. McKinnell Jr. 2001-2006 $188,329,553
CVS Caremark Corp. Thomas M. Ryan 1998-2011 $185,415,435
Gillette Co. James M. Kilts 2001-2005 $164,532,192
Target Corp. Robert J. Ulrich 1994-2008 $164,162,612
Merrill Lynch & Co. E. Stanley O'Neal 2002-2007 $161,500,000
U.S. Bancorp Jerry A. Grundhofer 2001-2006 $159,064,090
Omnicare, Inc. Joel F. Gemunder 2001-2010 $146,001,476
Wachovia/South Trust Wallace D. Malone Jr. 1981-2004 $125,292,818
United Technologies Corp. George A. L. David 1994-2008 $122,631,309
eBay Inc. Margaret C. Whitman 1998-2008 $120,427,360
WellPoint Health Leonard Schaeffer 1992-2004 $119,041,000
XTO Energy Inc. Bob R. Simpson 1986-2008 $103,485,972
Viacom Thomas E. Freston 2006 $100,839,772

[4TJefferson]

12:48 PM on 01/28/2012

Golden Parachutes for the Aristocracy worth $4 Billion!? $4 Billion!? This is after they have left the company!? That is the equivalent of 115,000 jobs at $40k per year! These are the Fairy Tale Job Creators that the GOPER/TPBAGGERS talk about!? In a pachyderm's eye.

[Frank2012]

10:23 PM on 01/27/2012

The CEOs and the boards are an old boys club, a tight group of people. If you get admitted into the club, you get paid insane money regardless you have any real management skills or not. The only qualification is the willingness and skill to run a racket. The board member of one company is the CEO of another, vice versa. They give each other big pay at the expense of the share holders. And they hire each other to run this racket. The market based approach in hiring all other positions in a company doesn't apply to CEO. It should. There is no reason why the hiring of CEO can not be handled by the HR like any other positions in the company. The job interview should be done by the knowledgeable people in the company as well, just like the job interview for any other positions. If this market based approach is adopted, there will be plenty of qualified candidates to make offers to. Most of the CEOs will be happy to work for less than $500K. The only reason this market based approach is not used is because that would break the old boys club. The boards and the CEOs (basically the same group of people) won't be able to run the current rackets to transfer the shareholder's investment money into their own pockets.

[mistergg69]

09:23 PM on 01/25/2012

CEOS GET BAILED OUT...WORKERS GET SOLD OUT

[Chris Ege]

07:51 PM on 01/24/2012

If the General Electric CEO is fired, he makes as much money in severance as he would make in salary if he worked 124 years. What is the incentive not to screw up or gamble with the company?

[bart4u]

04:18 PM on 01/23/2012

This is sad especially when their companies do poorly, they still get a big payday.

[teachone]

04:17 PM on 01/23/2012

All got where they are by parasiting and ripping off the American people, not paying their fair share of taxes and getting free handouts from the government! How much business knowledge, skills or abilities do you think that took??? NONE!! It only took someone with no conscience, who is ruthless and a good con man to steal their way to the top!! NOT IMPRESSED!!!!!!!

[IDIOTA]

01:31 PM on 01/23/2012

A golden parachute would be pretty heavy on the way down.

[lezahgg]

01:16 PM on 01/23/2012

I would like to hear an argument in favor of these huge compensation packages for CEO's or publicly traded companies. As a stockholder with mutual and index funds this policy makes me very angry because these packages are big enough to affect profits. I'd like to know what these CEO's bring to the table and what value they add. I agree that when peope risk their own capital to invest in a business that is successful that they should reap their rewards. I also understand rewarding someone big time whose innovations have boosted profits and income. In most cases CEO's that have done well for their companies have made decisions that other equally business savvy people would have done in their place. So why these huge packages? Can someone explain and keep in mind that I don't think that telling me that it is the company's busines what they pay is not an explanation. It is not their business when they have stockholders and a large percentage of Americans own stock these days.

[Ted Glass]

11:35 AM on 01/23/2012

These guys all pay a smaller effective tax rate than you and I do. Just like Mitt Romney.

Capital Gains tax over a certain amount per year should be taxed at the same rate as all other income.

[fried52]

01:36 AM on 01/23/2012

I'm gonna be sick.