Posted on 10/02/2008 9:21:49 AM PDT by Ugot2Bkidding
Alan Fishman, named CEO of Washington Mutual just 18 days before federal regulators seized it, will not accept a multimillion-dollar severance payment even if he is entitled to it, a spokesman representing him said Wednesday. "It is doubtful that Mr. Fishman would be entitled to severance payments under his contract because of FDIC regulations, but in any event, he would not accept severance under these circumstances," the spokesman said Wednesday in an interview. He would not comment on whether Fishman would keep a $7.5 million signing bonus or whether he is still employed at WaMu. Fishman's employment contract made him eligible for $11.6 million in cash severance, according to James F. Reda & Associates, a compensation-consulting firm in New York.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
How freakin’ magnanimous of him.
Does this mean FReepers can still hate him, CEO’s, and rich people in general?
They’ll find a way.
He was getting paid the going rate for bank presidents; why should we blame him for taking the money? Besides, he was only in office 16 days.
I’d love to know what they told him when they offered him the job. “Yeah, we have this little cashflow problem but it’ll be OK...” It’s hard to picture them not telling the potential CEO everything but it’s also hard to picture him taking the job if they had. OTOH, $7.5 mil is a pretty good poke for 18 days’ work. I’d consider it.
It's more than some of those democrat buttheads would do. So I think I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.
What amazes me is how easily so many FReepers have been mislead by a media they supposedly distrust.
He took the job not knowing the FDIC and Jamie Dimon were already colluding to orchestrate the biggest bank heist in history.
Many Freepers are no different than most of the rest of the country in one way: they are easily led to believe what they want to believe, and jump on any information/claim/news story that confirms it.
I've been suspecting that for a long time, now your post shows me I was right.
Wow. Can you imagine what the scene was like when somebody finally told him? "You did what?"
You think he would have accepted the job if he knew the company was on the brink of failure? And how could this possibly be a bluff—what does he hope to get out of it?
In all likelihood, WaMu itself was in denial about its prospects if it went to the trouble of hiring a new CEO (and giving him a contract like that) at that point. Also keep in mind that signing bonuses often largely just compensate CEOs for pay they’re giving up by leaving their old positions. It’s certainly not necessarily true that Fishman came out ahead in this whole ordeal.
Rich by your own labors, fine.
Rich after running someone else’s company into the ground? Not so fine.
I’m not saying this guy ran WAMU into the ground, but the CEO from Lehman Bros. sure did.
If I was a Lehman bondholder, I would have been beating down his door to get at some of the $375 million in pay he received the prior 5 yrs.
So the FDIC was telling wamu management one thing (get it fixed, communicate to depositors their money is safe, find a buyer if you can or well see where we are at in 2009).
Meanwhile, The FDIC was feeding Jamie Dimon inside information about wamu's balance sheets, depository activity, and what they where potentially planning to do.
So as Fishman was out trying to negotiate deals with potential buyers for the past couple weeks (citi, JPmorgan, TD of Canada, Santander, and HBSC) were all involved. Unknown to Wamu management, JP was being given up to the moment updates by the FDIC on everything. JPMorgan must of been laughing their asses off behind all the fake smiles when they had Fishman and crew in their offices talking about a buyout, knowing full well they were going to wait for the potential FDIC seizure to buy wamu's assets and rip off any stock or debt holders. Jamie Dimon had weeks to get the finances in order, and after the FDIC did seize it, they held the quickest "silent auction" in history. Basically, JPMorgan was the only real bidder.
So for 1.9 billion winning bid, JPmorgan got: A bank with 135 billion in deposits 2200 branches across the united states 50 billion in liquid assets Top 10 credit card company in size All the real estate wamu owned The 42 story wamu center building in downtown Seattle. The wamu pension fund which is currently "overfunded" with over 2 billion in investments.
Now over 60,000+ stockholders have been wiped out and wamu employees have been told none of their previous seniority, severence, or pension money may be there for them. This was basically the financial version of Russia/Czechoslavakia 1968.
In general, folks on this forum (like folks generally) seem perfectly willing to believe the MSM whenever the MSM supports their own prejudices.
I have consciously decided that whenever MSM reporting seems to be supportive of whatever prejudices or preconceptions I might have, I should be doubly suspicious of them.
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