Fiorina Exiting Hewlett-Packard With More Than $42 Million (Golden Parachute Flashback)

NY Times ^ | FEB. 12, 2005 | ERIC DASH

[jimbo123]

Carleton S. Fiorina, the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, will receive a severance package worth about $21.4 million, and stands to gain at least $21.1 million more.

The additional amount reflects the estimated value of her pension, stock options and Hewlett stock holdings, which the company did not include in her severance package.

Ms. Fiorina was forced to resign Tuesday after the board concluded that she failed to reverse Hewlett's sagging stock price and accelerate the company's turnaround after the merger with Compaq Computer.

She will receive $14 million in severance pay, or two and a half times her 2004 salary and bonus, according to terms of the agreement submitted yesterday in regulatory filings.

She will also receive a $7.38 million bonus for meeting certain performance goals in 2004 and the first quarter of this year, even though on Wednesday the board singled out Ms. Fiorina's failure to accelerate the company's strategy.

In addition, Hewlett agreed to pay her $50,000 for legal, financial and career counseling and will continue her health and personal security benefits for about a year.

Paul Hodgson, a senior compensation analyst at the Corporate Library, questioned the severance in light of her initial pay package. Ms. Fiorina received a $3 million signing bonus along with a restricted stock grant worth more than $65.5 million at the time to woo her away from Lucent Technologies, according to filings.

"And as she leaves," he said, "she gets $21 million, when in fact, stockholders have gotten negative returns."

More than $21.1 million in additional compensation was not reflected in the severance package.

[jimbo123]

Because the company's share price has fallen more than 50 percent since Ms. Fiorina took over in July 1999

[Uncle Miltie]

Carly hijacked America with printer ink prices.

[Savage Beast]

Good for her! She earned it!

[Uncle Miltie]

Should be “astronomical”.

[FlipWilson]

I logged on to post in another thread that was talking about Carly taking Trump to task for declaring bankruptcy. Great minds thinking alike!! My response if I were Trump I would jump on the fact that Carly was so bad as CEO they paid her a mint to leave.

[Darksheare]

Related:
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3337462/posts
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3337448/posts

[Aria]

She must have made another fortune when the stock surged upon her firing. WOW

[ifinnegan]

See also

http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2012/05/25/can-meg-whitman-and-layoffs-turn-around-hp-nope/

Written in 2012

Excerpt:

—

Simply, Carly Fiorina took a company long on innovation and new product development and turned it into the most outdated industrial-era sort of company.  Rather than having HP pursue new technologies and products in the development of new markets, like the company had done since its founding creating the market for electronic testing equipment, she plunged HP into a generic manufacturing war.

[tacticalogic]

She must have made another fortune when the stock surged upon her firing. WOW

Sounds like she'll be chalking up another thirty pieces of silver tonight.

[9YearLurker]

And Trump says he’s a negotiator...

[massgopguy]

You people are idiots. It was the Mormon Management Cult at Digital Equipment Corporation that was stuck in the era of Main frames Computers. I worked there. The HP neanderthals shared Ken Olsen’s philosophy of ordinary people having no use for computers. And no. I am not typing this on a VAX 1150.

[Jim from C-Town]

People who are worth that kind of money are paid to stay, not paid to leave gracefully. Had she been successful she would still be CEO of HP.

[matginzac]

These “Golden Parachutes” are standard for the upper echelon...
look at Goldman and the others. They get a tax payer bail out and their wizards still get multi-million dollar bonuses...
Lesson to be learned: get your MBA and a job at a hedge fund...

[Stand Watch Listen]

CNN MONEY..Forget what Trump says about her face. Fiorina's HP past is the issue - Sep. 10, 2015

“….And Trump is right to point out that Fiorina's track record in business isn't all that good. Fiorina was the CEO of Hewlett-Packard (HPQ, Tech30) during a tumultuous time for the Silicon Valley legend.

She joined the company in July 1999 after a successful stint at AT&T (T, Tech30) and its networking equipment spinoff Lucent.

But the tech bubble burst only a few months after she took the HP job.

Fiorina tried to jump start the company's growth in the PC market by acquiring rival Compaq in 2002 for $19 billion.

That deal is now considered one of the worst in the history of the tech sector. And HP wound up laying off 30,000 workers during her nearly six-year tenure.

By the time of Fiorina's ouster in February 2005, HP's stock had lost nearly half its value. The Nasdaq index had fallen 27% during the same time frame. ………….”

Adding insult to injury, HP's stock rose 7% on the news that she was leaving HP.

I covered Fiorina's departure for CNNMoney. At the time, an analyst covering HP told me "nobody liked Carly's leadership all that much. The Street had lost all faith in her and the market's hope is that anyone will be better."

[Wonder Warthog]

"Simply, Carly Fiorina took a company long on innovation and new product development and turned it into the most outdated industrial-era sort of company. Rather than having HP pursue new technologies and products in the development of new markets, like the company had done since its founding creating the market for electronic testing equipment, she plunged HP into a generic manufacturing war."

Best one-paragraph summation I have seen of what she "accomplished". Fortunately, the "HP Culture" survived in the section that was spun off as "Agilent". I don't particularly follow HP news, but the general impression I have is that Meg Whitman has turned things around, at least partially.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

If I were trump I’d say, Carly is a nice person, but she lost 30,000 jobs at HP - probably people watching tonight whose lives were decimated. She lost money for investors. Now she wants to bring that to America.

I will produce jobs and make America great again!

[txrefugee]

It would be okay if she had led the company to greater profits during her tenure, but she left it in bad shape. Why would we want someone who failed in business to be in charge of the country that desperately needs smart leadership?

[refermech]

And you ugly too! He might say that.

[Ronald_Magnus]

A face that sank a thousand ships.