Alan Fishman was–repeat WAS–the new CEO of Washington Mutual. Until last night, that is, when the fed took over his bank and sold its $310 billion in assets to JP Morgan Chase for a paisley $1.9 billion. They might as well have bought it on ebay for that. The price is a joke. It speaks volumes about just how poorly the company was doing. And Fishman was being pursued aggresively to be the new CEO.
What’s really galling is that Fishman, after a total of 17 days on the job, is getting a $20 million severance package.
This isn’t the first whopper of a payout given to an inept CEO. Troubled Merill Lynch gave Stanley O’Neill $66 million as he left, less than a year before they had to be sold to Bank of America. Think he and his board didn’t know what direction the company was headed? Citigroup, still smarting from their spankings in the Terra Securities scandal and the “sweep” theft judgment in California, let CEO Chuck Prince go for $16 million. And Wachovia, up to its eyeballs in the subprime clusterf— and still hemorrhaging money, gave their CEO, Ken Thompson, $5 million when they waved him out the door.
The worst by far was Countrywide’s Angelo Mozilo, who not only passed off $150 million in company stock just before it tanked, but still walked away with an unheard-of $115 severance package.
That the CEO payoff craze hasn’t been stopped is deplorable. Why should these nitwitted, greedy power mongers get huge paydays for tanking the largest financial corporations in the world? Do you have any idea what I could do with $20 million, mr. Fishman? I could go to school for the rest of my life. I could buy homes for all of my family, set up a trust fund for my niece, and start a scholarship fund for the children of fallen police officers and firefighters. I could spend the rest of my life volunteering without having to worry about making a living. I doubt a single one of these country-club trolls has any aspiration to do anything decent with their ill-gotten gain.
Then again, if they ever felt an ounce of conscience, their companies wouldn’t be in dire straits and we wouldn’t be talking about a $700 billion bailout.
steveflesher
Philip
Mel Maguire
Mark Ciavola
