Exiting GM CEO Wagoner gets lifetime salary, millions in benefits
Published: July 14, 2009
Updated 4 months ago
Outgoing General Motors Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner, who oversaw the company’s worst financial downturn ever and was told to resign by U.S. President Barack Obama, will be handsomely compensated for his service, according to a published report.
After 32 years with the company, Wagoner plans to officially resign on August 1, though he ceased work in his role as CEO on March 27. He will receive $1.6 million in annual benefits over the next five years, along with an annual salary of $74,030 for the rest of his life, The Wall Street Journal revealed late Tuesday.
“Wagoner will continue to receive liability insurance coverage at a level similar with other retired executives until Jan. 1, 2010,” the paper noted. “He also will receive a life insurance policy, which the company has maintained for his benefit since Jan. 1, 1997, or its cash value, currently $2.6 million.”
The Detroit Free Press estimated the package to be worth $8.2 million.
“His retirement benefits had been valued at $22.1 million in 2008, but pensions for top executives were cut by two-thirds as part of the company’s bankruptcy sale to a government-owned entity,” the noted. “Wagoner also had held about 3 million options to buy GM shares that are now worthless.”
After a $50 billion taxpayer investment in GM, which was deemed “too big to fail,” the firm underwent a 41-day stay in bankruptcy court, emerging under 60.8 percent ownership by the U.S. government.
Treasury Department officials were said to have been trying to reduce Wagoner’s exit package.
Once the world’s largest corporation, General Motors sold more vehicles than any other carmaker from 1931 through 2007, after which it lost the crown to Japan’s Toyota.
The “new GM” remade itself to be “leaner” by shedding tens of thousands of workers, eliminating or selling storied brands, shuttering scores of factories and rewriting its labor contracts to slash costs.
It is also unencumbered by the bulk of the massive debt load it racked up during four straight years of bleeding balance sheets. GM entered bankruptcy protection on June 1 with liabilities of 172.8 billion dollars.
Canada, which provided 9.1 billion dollars in loans, has an 11.7 percent stake and a United Auto Workers union retiree healthcare trust fund holds 17.5 percent.
The “old GM” retained a 10 percent stake in order to allow creditors to recover some of their losses.
President Barack Obama, whose auto taskforce spearheaded the GM restructuring plan, said his administration has no intention of nationalizing the automaker over the long term and will not be participating in its day-to-day operations.
With AFP.
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They could have dragged in the first person they saw off the street or a random pick from a mental institution and done as well if not better than this guy. What a bad joke American business has become.
The anti-auto-union assholes who hammer the fact that the Auto Union is responsible for the demise of “Government Motors” (GM) now know that the auto workers have in fact did such good work that this fucking thief will make out like a bandit off of their hard labor. This old fuck will sit around and play golf, smoke cigars while his lousy management skills make Michigan look like tobacco road.
You have to be a scumbag criminal CEO to get this compensation for helping ruin a major US company and industry. My brother recently retired from GM and is worrying about getting promised health benefits, and this piece of shit walks away with an untold fortune. What has happened to our contry?
You have to be a scumbag criminal CEO to get this compensation for helping ruin a major US company and industry. My brother recently retired from GM and is worrying about getting promised health benefits, and this piece of shit walks away with an untold fortune. What has happened to our country?
Feel no shame, that was worth mentioning twice.
When do you think it’s going to dawn on Americans that this “bailout” is just another scam to steal money from working people and put it in the pockets of the rich?
Introducing the Platinum Parachute
Its called aristocracy.
I’m willing to bet that the union contracts that were rewritten didn’t end up with the workers getting lifetime salaries. I would like some reporter to ask this guy if he feels that he deserves what he is now getting, and if so, why? Then follow up on why he deserves this, but lots of other people who have worked longer for GM have ended up with nothing. The last question should be whether he feels any shame and if he is going to use his ill-gotten gains to relieve the suffering he has caused to the workers. It would be interesting to hear his response.
Not a smart move. I feel a tremor coming.
And now the new CEO of GM is Ed Whitacre. He has experience at buying up his competitors and reconstituting the old AT&T. He took advantage of the nullified antitrust laws. His company is one that cooperated with the NSA illegally to allow them to spy on Americans for whatever reason that they wanted to. They said it was about terrorism and Al CIAda, but the fact is that this spying started in January of 2001, long before 911. In return for allowing spying illegally, his company got favorable government treatment when it came to deregulation and who knows what else. I am quite sure that Whitacre is the man who made the decision to allow the spying. This is a character issue that immediately should disqualify him from being able to take the job at GM. AT&T, now that it has consolidated again, is one of those companies that would be deemed too big to fail. I don’t like the chicken shit tactics that they used to squeeze out competition here in Texas. I don’t like Ed Whitacre. He is one of the old boy network type of CEOs. He is a smoke filled room type. His ego says he can turn GM around. At AT&T they outsourced their customer assistance to the Philippines and India. He will likely bust up the union or go around them by sending the production to Brazil or China. What is his compensation for the GM job? He admits that he doesn’t know Jack shit about cars. I don’t like AT&T and I don’t like Ed Whitacre. They represent what is wrong with this country. GM needs a fresh approach, not some old egomaniacal fart from the monolithic past.
You could be talking about our congress that made this mess for us getting automatic pay raises and lifetime raises when they should be in jail or at least fired..
Let’s go ahead and face it, the greatest rewards in our nation at this time go to the plunder barons who steer our ship of state towards a dubious fate.
I don’t want to hear 1 person complain about United Auto Workers getting $27 dollars an hour!
I will slap you silly for 1 entire week!
A Poem for the “New” General Motors
Thanks, General Motors, You’ve done it again …
Closed down our factory and harmed all my friends
Ruined our economy, and wrecked our fair town
Bonused yourselves and let everyone down
You’ve come out of bankruptcy, all shiny and “New”
and got rid of the workers who know what to do,
swindled the bondholders, and stockholders too
and thousands of dealers who sold cars for you
and stiffed your suppliers, reneged on your debts
then begged Uncle Sam to cover your bets
on your Hummers, and Saturns, and Pontiac Azteks
and your golden parachutes & your corporate jets
You’ve blamed your bankruptcy on GM the OLD.
Brand names you swallowed up, gutted then sold
Dealers and workers and investors betrayed
and ruined for the lousy decisions you’ve made
So now you’re the Good Guys, The “New GM”
The same old management, Greedy as Sin
Ungrateful and selfish you saved your own skin,
and expect us to buy your products again?
Rick Wagoner, Ed Whitacre, Fritz Hendersen, Bob Lutz
go bonus yourselves the way you bone us.
from a Tool & Die Maker, and crane driver too,
a CAD/CAM programmer and a skilled tradesman who ….
Has worked 30 years carrying out the commands
of men who couldn’t shove their finger in their ass with 9 hands