The 20 Most Outrageous CEO Parachutes
$35 million for bogus expense reports? Mark Hurd’s H-P payoff was just another routine day in the life of corporate America. How his parachute stacks up against 20 all-time malfeasants.
Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd may be hurting from the media swirl around his alleged relationship with a contractor and false expense reports, but his wallet will stay fat thanks to a severance package valued at $34.6 million in cash and stock.
And how’s the man Hurd succeeded as America’s favorite entitlement whipping boy, BP CEO Tony Hayward? He was exiled to Siberia and will leave his post in October—but not without a severance and pension package reportedly worth $17 million.
But Hurd and Hayward are hardly the best-paid paragons of corporate misfires. The Daily Beast inspected news reports and Securities & Exchange Commission filings spanning more than 25 years to find the 20 titans of industry who, despite very public professional failings, walked away with tens, even hundreds of millions in cash and stock.
To come up with our list of 20, we separated the leaders of industry into two groups—those who resigned or were fired under the taint of ethics scandals, and those who left because of professional failings. We then combined the 10 highest paid from each group—reflecting the total value of the exit packages—into our final list of 20.
#1, Michael Eisner
Company: Disney
Total Value of Severance Package: $220 million
#2, Henry McKinnell
Company: Pfizer
Total Value of Severance Package: $213 million
#3, Robert Nardelli
Company: Home Depot
Total Value of Severance Package: $210 million
#4, Bruce Karatz
Company: KB Homes
Total Value of Severance Package: $175 million
#5, Stanley O’Neal
Company: Merrill Lynch
Total Value of Severance Package: $161.5 million
#6, William McGuire
Company: UnitedHealth
Total Value of Severance Package: $161 million
#7, Franklin Raines / Fannie Mae
Company: Fannie Mae
Total Value of Severance Package: $148 million
#8, Michael Ovitz
Company: Disney
Total Value of Severance Package: $140 million
#9, Douglas Ivester
Company: Coca-Cola
Total Value of Severance Package: $120 million
#10, Philip Purcell
Company: Morgan Stanley
Total Value of Severance Package: $113 million
#11, Kenneth Lay
Company: Enron
Total Value of Severance Package: $81 million
#12, Steve Hilbert
Company: Conseco
Total Value of Severance Package: $72 million
#13, Frank Newman
Company: Bankers Trust
Total Value of Severance Package: $55 million
#14, Mark H. Swartz
Company: Tyco
Total Value of Severance Package: $45 million
#15, Kerry Killinger
Company: Washington Mutual
Total Value of Severance Package: $44 million
#16, Angelo Mozilo
Company: Countrywide
Total Value of Severance Package: $44 million
#17, Harry Stonecipher
Company: Boeing
Total Value of Severance Package: $44 million
#18, Carly Fiorina
Company: Hewlett-Packard
Total Value of Severance Package: $40 million
#19, Mark Hurd
Company: Hewlett-Packard
Total Value of Severance Package: $35 million
#20, Martin Sullivan
Company: AIG
Total Value of Severance Package: $19 million
source: TheDailyBeast
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In: Business Stories · Tagged with: Bp Ceo, Bruce Karatz, Ceo Mark, Fannie Mae, Franklin Raines, Henry Mckinnell, Home Depot, Mark Hurd, Merrill Lynch, Michael Eisner, O Neal, Parachutes, Paragons, Robert Nardelli, Routine Day, Severance Package, Total Value, Unitedhealth, Whipping Boy, William Mcguire
