Posted on 02/04/2009 10:33:03 AM PST by Wolfie
Report: Macy's execs get bonuses day after cutting 7,000 jobs
NEW YORK, NY -- Macy's Inc. announced Monday that it would cut 7,000 jobs, almost 4 percent of its work force, and reduced its contributions to its employees' retirement funds and slash its dividend to preserve cash amid a severe pullback in consumer spending.
But a day after Macy’s executives announced the lay-offs, Cincinnati.com reports that top company officials received a final installment on $1.39 million in performance bonuses from 2004.
According to Cincinnati.com:
"The stock credit plan created in March 2004 brought five top executives “phantom stock units” or stock credits after a three-year holding period ended on Saturday, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Tuesday.
Half of the incentive was paid in February 2008 with the remaining amount paid Monday."
Department stores have been especially hard-hit by the poor economy as shoppers cut spending and turn to discount stores. Last month, Fresno, Calif.-based department store chain Gottschalks Inc. put itself up for sale and said it had filed to reorganize in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Dallas-based Neiman Marcus Group Inc. said this month that it was cutting about 375 jobs, or 3 percent of its work force.
I give up.
In my business employees get promoted. Some will even make it
to executive positions. Can you even wrap your mind around
the fact that maybe just possibly that at one time they were
in the same position as the people as the people they were
laying off?
If you read past financial statements there are deferred executive compensation components in every one. It’s not like they just invented this yesterday. It is part of executive contracts.
Contracts? You say contracts? Why do what you have to do to honor contracts? How evil.
LOL
This is exactly what will happen if CEO’s and upper management keep taking pay...when times are tough. They don’t care because they will leave before the end taking millions with them no doubt...these guys look after themselves and not their companies. I don’t know how this compensation thing got so out of control...it seems shareholders have little say these days. I don’t want to see government control (unless bailed out), but many companies will go under because of these guys and that’s a damn shame.
Better start sellin’.
But, remember that in major league sports, a LOT of pro athletes defer significant portions of their earnings to remain under the earnings caps.
You want me to believe that business people, who are typically a lot smarter than pro athletes, are dumb enough to collect a bonus after laying off 7,000 people knowing how the DBM would portray it!!???
Uh-huh.
They expect the economy to slow...but still took their bonuses...What is wrong with this picture? I understand business. It looks like another CEO-not sure his company will survive-getting his while he still can.
uh...and what is wrong with that. Have you been paying attention to events today?
I said in my first post, they could do what they want as they were not bailed out...check it out. In this economy, I just think it is unwise. If the economy is bad enough to lay of 7000 people, perhaps bonuses should wait. I can’t help but wonder if down the road Macy’s will be bankrupt and these guys are just taking their profits before the end comes as many CEO’s have done recently.
You can’t make taking bonuses and laying of 7000 people in the same week ‘nice’...not even Mother Teresa could manage that. Again Macy’s is not a bailed out company and can take bonuses and compensate themselves as they see fit...I don’t like what they did (opinion)thus as a consumer, I can shop elsewhere.
Exactly, they can and will run this company into the ground...there own little piggy bank.
I pity Macy’s stockholders...if it were me I would sell immediately before the company is in bankruptcy.
....uh...duh..... where have you been hangin’ out?
Geesh.
Definitely time to sell stockholders...they only care about themselves getting ready to take the money and run.
Believe that employees are just pawns and have no worth will destroy the middle class and this country in the end...Macy’s should pay through the nose into the unemployment fund...to bad the stockholders will be screwed again in the end.
Stockholders have no say...do you think they would stand by and watch companies being driven into bankruptcy if they did? The laws need to changed...real elections of boards.
A CEO has a duty to look after his company and his stockholders...if more of these clowns drive there companies into the ground while taking millions...there will be new laws enacted...which would be a shame.
You don't understand these fiduciary duties if you think they mean an executive cannot take a bonus he is entitled to under his employment contract.
Besides, he was looking after his company and shareholders when he laid off 7,000 unnecessary workers.
So you want our country to be more like France and Germany, where it is far harder and more expensive to lay off workers because this allegedly protects the middle class?
At lease France and Germany have so much more dynamic economies and lower unemployment. /s
That is what the CEO did. I do not see anything about the stockholders being upset.
How do you know these people got millions. There is no law, yet, that demands they employ this 7000 people and give benefits when they are no longer needed.
You need to change parties. You are a socialist.
Actually, stockholders have LOTS of say. The problem is that they are often the shadow force behind the CEOs. It is often the major stockholders who will engage in “creative accounting” to make the company appear to be in better financial condition than they actually are. Then, they get caught up in their own BS and start believing the earnings reports.
An example, if you will. Decades ago, a Madison Avenue advertising exec named Jerry Della Femina,who founded a small agency, found himself being sabotaged by phony “information” about his agency being planted in the trade journal “Ad Week”, which was a known charactersitic of the periodical. Blocked from attracting new advertising clients by the false information, he soon found himself down to his last $1100.00 in the world and on the verge of having to close his own agency.
He did the opposite of what everyone assumed he would do. He spent the money on a lavish party that gave everyone the opinion that his agency was wildly successful and had lots and lots of business.
Because he did that, he signed several new accounts that night, salvaged his agency and went on to become one of Madison Avenues more influential ad agencies.
Stockholders tend to be a broad mix of people from many walks of life. Often, they are the force behind bad business decisions or they fail to recognize that a particular course of action may fall under the Law of Unintended Consequence. When the business sinks, it is the CEO who is the face of the business and who gets the blame.
The stockholders simply slink off deeper into the shadows to find another business to control.
Interesting...however, I do think that the fact that so much of stock is held in mutual funds has reduced the influence of stockholders...except for the big guys...if Wall Street does not address these problems...they will be regulated-not a good thing either.
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