EXXON CHAIRMAN GETS $400 MILLION RETIREMENT PACKAGE AMID SOARING GAS PRICES

ABC News via Drudge ^

[aShepard]

April 14, 2006— Soaring gas prices are squeezing most Americans at the pump, but at least one man isn't complaining.

Last year, Exxon made the biggest profit of any company ever, $36 billion, and its retiring chairman appears to be reaping the benefits.

Exxon is giving Lee Raymond one of the most generous retirement packages in history, nearly $400 million, including pension, stock options and other perks, such as a $1 million consulting deal, two years of home security, personal security, a car and driver, and use of a corporate jet for professional purposes.

Last November, when he was still chairman of Exxon, Raymond told Congress that gas prices were high because of global supply and demand.

"We're all in this together, everywhere in the world," he testified.

Raymond, however, was confronted with caustic complaints about his compensation.

"In 2004, Mr. Raymond, your bonus was over $3.6 million," Sen. Barbara Boxer said.

That was before new corporate documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission that revealed Raymond's retirement deal and his $51.1 million paycheck in 2005. That's equivalent to $141,000 a day, nearly $6,000 an hour. It's almost more than five times what the CEO of Chevron made.

"I think it will spark a lot of outrage," said Sarah Anderson, a fellow in the global economy program at the Institute for Policy Studies, an independent think tank. "Clearly much of his high-level pay is due to the high price of gas."

Exxon defends Raymond's compensation, pointing out that during the 12 years he ran the company, Exxon became the largest oil company in the world and that the stock price went up 500 percent.

A company spokesman said the compensation package reflected "a very long and distinguished career."

Some Exxon shareholders are now trying to pass resolutions criticizing the company's executive pay policies. The company is urging other shareholders to vote against those resolutions.

[KevinDavis]

My mistake..

[nopardons]

Government regulating what a company can charge for its product and/or what it pays its employees, is NOT what you should want to be the rule.

Tiffany doesn't hand out coupons, in order to "compete" with Cartier, Harry Winston, or even GRAFF. Neither are there "BREAD WARS" as there was GAS WARS, in the 1950s and 'early '60s.

[the invisib1e hand]

If we could somehow link immigration with evolution, the internet itself would implode.

belated LOL.

[nopardons]

Ahhhhhhhhhh...but you aren't an Exon stocvkholder and it's none of your business what the company has given this man. And your class warfare post, is not only contemptible, but juvenile.

[HawaiianGecko]

"You misunderstand. I'm not whining a bit."

Well, I'm glad I reread my own post. I was about to say you are crazy, I don't accuse people of whining, but I see I clearly did type that. My apologies, truly.  However, I really didn't mean the donuts as an insult. The original pronoun I typed was 'we' and I backed up and replaced it with 'you' as I am a diabetic and unfortunately haven't enjoyed a doughnut for years.  I simply didn't realize that by making that simple change I stripped all the humor out of the statement.

Your post did, however, appear to me to be saying that his retirement added significantly to a gallon of gas. I trust you know what you meant better than I, so I'm just going to reboot and forget this conversation happened. :)

 

[1066AD]

Just because you're the latgest oil co in the world doesn't guarantee anything other than some inertia, it most certainly doesn't guarantee future success, lok what happened to Mobil, doomed by risk averse top management. Exxon under Raymond has been a very efficient enterprise.

[RinaseaofDs]

Agree completely.

[Young Scholar]

Many people seem to think running a business like Exxon Mobil (XOM) cannot possibly be that hard, and that there is no way that Mr. Raymond deserves as much as he got. Here is a quick lesson on the economics of executive pay:

Most here would agree that if an entrepreneur created a $1 billion business, he deserves the $1 billion he earns from that.

Now, if it is about as hard to successfully run a $250 billion company like XOM as it is to found a $1 billion company (it may or may not be, but no one on this board can really make this judgment), it is reasonable to think that a company will need to pay someone with this level of skill close to $1 billion to work for them (instead of going off and founding his own company, or working for a competitor). And before people protest that it is easy to manage an already existing company like XOM, remember that there are probably many smaller companies with extremely skillful CEOs, just waiting for XOM to make a mistake so they can take its business. (Isn't the free market great?)

Thus, if someone has the skill to lead a $250 billion company or found a $1 billion+ one (or, perhaps, grow a much smaller one to that size), is there a reason he would choose to lead the large company if the rewards were not close to what he could expect building his own company? Thus, isn't it is the best interests of the stockholders of XOM to pay what it takes to get the most capable person to lead it? And is there any reason that executive doesn't deserve what they pay him?

Granted, many executives do not succeed and still get oversized pay packages. No one is saying the system is perfect, and that boards always represent the interests of shareholders, but there is no question that it is often in a company's best interest to pay a successful executive huge amounts of money.

[Radix]

Class warfare? Me?

Exxon can pay that man a billion dollars as far as I am concerned.

If I were an Exxon stockholder I'd likely feel different.

Meanwhile, we are just chatting here.

[Young Scholar]

No problem at all. I'm just glad to have another conservative on the thread; apparently, we are few and far between.

[aShepard]

..............Exxon under Raymond has been a very efficient enterprise...............

I beg to differ!

Raymond has been the benefiter of a huge increase in the value of Exxon/Mobil's value of in-the ground-energy value! Exxon has been a great company, and a great investment, and even Bin Ladin, if he's invested in oil, has trippled his investment in goat related oil futures/p>

[nopardons]

What happened, is that when people were told that they could get gas cheaper, if they filled their own tank, they went for it and all of the guys who used to check your oil and wash your windshield, went the way of spats and hoop skirts.

And yes, you really ARE just being a jerk.

[Young Scholar]

I just want you to say for the record a ceo deservedly makes 800 times more than a truck driver.

If he was largely responsible for Exxon Mobil's growth in the last 15 years, he deserves at least that.

And, BTW, $400 million is 8,000 times $50,000, not 800.

[IronJack]

It's capitalism, it's not supposed to be "fair." And this thing is global capitalism, so there are huge forces at work.

Is that a declaration that "capitalsm" and "fair" are mutually exclusive? Does profit necessarily know no bounds? Is there no moral element whatsoever to the profit motive?

If so, then capitalism is evil, and "pernicious" is just the right word to describe it.

Frankly, I don't believe that. I believe that any company can make a profit -- and a healthy one at that -- and still give some thought to its effect on the well-being of the people it serves. In fact, in the name of enlightened self-interest, failure to do so is a reprehensible practice, and fuels the anti-capitalist fires far better than mere demagoguery.

If capitalism is to survive as an economic model, it is going to have to exercise some measure of conscience. Either it will be recognized and adapted from within, or it will be imposed from without.

[MikefromOhio]

Facts?!!?!??!

Yes facts. As in the world's oil suppliers are producing well over expected capacity yet there is STILL a bit of a scarcity of oil on the market. Why? Because of the FACT that China and India are USING that much more.

[Democratshavenobrains]

Exactly. Thats the whole reason Teddy Roosevelt broke up the trusts. He wasn't a communist. He just didn't want his country to go communist. I just hope the oil ceos enjoy it if Democrats control all branches of the government again. Say hello to 95% tax on your earnings.

[nopardons]

Hogwash!

This is just a personal vendetta to you and you are nothing but a disruptor.

[ThinkDifferent]

I think he just described an efficient commodity market!

No, no, no. If you charge the same as your competitors it's price fixing, if you charge more it's gouging, and if you charge less it's dumping. If only we had wise bureaucrats to tell us how much things should cost. Then they could make plans for five year intervals detailing what we should produce. With the right people in charge, surely it would work.

[nopardons]

:-)

[nopardons]

ROTFLOL...you're about 120 years behind the times, with all of that stereotyping mud slinging.