The one-day chief exec will receive up to $44.4 million in exit payments.

What.

downstairs: FishyFred: The one-day chief exec will receive up to $44.4 million in exit payments.

What.

Contracts are contracts. No different than signing a baseball player to a $44 million contract over X number of years, who then has a career ending injury on his first game.

Teams tend to insure large contracts against things like that so they aren't simply out $44 million because of a freak injury.

I wonder if the same thing is common in business.

FishyFred: downstairs: FishyFred: The one-day chief exec will receive up to $44.4 million in exit payments.

What.

Contracts are contracts. No different than signing a baseball player to a $44 million contract over X number of years, who then has a career ending injury on his first game.

Teams tend to insure large contracts against things like that so they aren't simply out $44 million because of a freak injury.

I wonder if the same thing is common in business.

Yes. Almost all companies take insurance policies out in case their critical members cannot or will not continue working for them, for whatever reason.

As a Jets fan, I'm having flashbacks to the Belichick regime.

downstairs: FishyFred: The one-day chief exec will receive up to $44.4 million in exit payments.

What.

Contracts are contracts. No different than signing a baseball player to a $44 million contract over X number of years, who then has a career ending injury on his first game.

Except that's not how sports contracts work, generally.

That's nice but do they cover their teeth?

squegeebooo: downstairs: FishyFred: The one-day chief exec will receive up to $44.4 million in exit payments.

What.

Contracts are contracts. No different than signing a baseball player to a $44 million contract over X number of years, who then has a career ending injury on his first game.

Except that's not how sports contracts work, generally.

Sure it does. If you're cut(fired) in the NHL, NBA or MLB the player gets their contract amount in full. It's only in the NFL where the player is screwed.

downstairs: FishyFred: The one-day chief exec will receive up to $44.4 million in exit payments.

What.

Contracts are contracts. No different than signing a baseball player to a $44 million contract over X number of years, who then has a career ending injury on his first game.

Which would make sense if it didn't seem like such a pre-planned under-the-table scheme.

Yes? What?

Yes? What?

downstairs: FishyFred: The one-day chief exec will receive up to $44.4 million in exit payments.

What.

Contracts are contracts. No different than signing a baseball player to a $44 million contract over X number of years, who then has a career ending injury on his first game.

If such a ridiculous sweetheart contract was approved by the board of directors, the shareholders should revolt.

Seriously, do these types of executive contracts have ANY conditions at all?

Snarcoleptic_Hoosier: FishyFred: The one-day chief exec will receive up to $44.4 million in exit payments.

What.

Hey! It was a hard 6 hours!

If you're curious, that's over $2000 per second.

$44.4 million in exit payments. And because it is in NC, it won't be taxed for state taxes.

cry me a farking river.

I want that Job! I bet I could last 2 more hours for twice as much money.

downstairs: No, its exactly how they work, generally. The NFL happens to be different, but pretty much every other sport has guaranteed contracts. Some may have performance clauses (you hit 30 home runs, you get an extra $100,000)... but the base salary is there forever. If you can't play because of injury, the team assumes the risk.

There are many MLB, NHL, NBA teams hampered with large contracts for athletes that aren't playing for them any more and never will. Part of the game.

The contracts I've read usually have a very big chunk (at least 50% if not a whole lot more) of it guaranteed but not all of it.

Injuries are by their very nature, unforeseen events. Really don't think this was the case here though. But no worries, Duke's ratepayers can afford this.

Uhh....


I'm glad I'm not a shareholder.

downstairs: Great_Milenko: downstairs: FishyFred: The one-day chief exec will receive up to $44.4 million in exit payments.

What.

Contracts are contracts. No different than signing a baseball player to a $44 million contract over X number of years, who then has a career ending injury on his first game.

If such a ridiculous sweetheart contract was approved by the board of directors, the shareholders should revolt.

Seriously, do these types of executive contracts have ANY conditions at all?

That's not how life works. If you're an in demand executive, you have bargaining power. If you're an in demand *anything* you have bargaining power.

You can pretend that a public company shouldn't give a CEO a golden parachute... but the fact that the number of people that could run a Fortune 500 company is rather scarce... a potential CEO is going to demand such, or just not take the position.

I don't think it's as scarce as some would like us to believe. It's convenient if people believe there's a scarcity, because that means CEOs can justify their increasingly out-of-step salaries. But in reality people are no more or less capable now in terms of 'running a Fortune 500 company' than they were in the 50s when CEO salaries were much more sensible and in step with their workforce.

I mean, sure, a lot of people are idiots. But the idea that there are only a few people able to run these companies and that consequently salaries have to be ridiculous sums of money to retain them is a little too convenient for the people CEOs making these arguments. Have any of them proven to be infallible? They make bad mistakes just like the rest of us.

Look at Yahoo and tell me that your next door neighbour couldn't have done a better job than the nitwits they've had running the show. Damn, they might as well have saved the money and just put a yoghurt in charge.

I think the answer to this mystery was in the final sentence. If someone told me I could get $44 million if I left after one day I'd make sure the door didn't hit my a$$ on the way out.

I'm not one to defend overpaid underskilled CEO's, but another article on this stated that the board knew this guy was going to become CEO for 18 months (this one does mention the merger was started 18 months ago), so really the board is the ones at fault here. How did this discussion not come up in the past 18 months? But then again, it is always the board of directors who hires these twits for obscene amounts of money so really they are always the ones at fault. I can't blame the CEOs for taking one of these contracts, though I can always blame them for being such imbeciles who run companies into the ground.

downstairs: FishyFred: The one-day chief exec will receive up to $44.4 million in exit payments.

What.

Contracts are contracts. No different than signing a baseball player to a $44 million contract over X number of years, who then has a career ending injury on his first game.

Or the contracts that companies sign with unions. They're completely 100% iron-clad and...hey, why are you all laughing?

its not this guy's fault that the board of directions is filled with morons.

the board should be taken out back and shot.

I would've worked 8 hours for half that amount. They got ripped off.

FishyFred: The one-day chief exec will receive up to $44.4 million in exit payments.

What.

The sad thing is, anyone who has any more outrage than this is dismissed as a rabble-rouser.

/If you really had any convictions, you'd stop complaining about CEO pay and do something about it.
//And I don't mean passive actions like boycott and Occupy.

Great_Milenko: If such a ridiculous sweetheart contract was approved by the board of directors, the shareholders should revolt.

Such sweetheart deals are done all the time. The shareholders don't revolt because most of them are on the board of directors.

dumbobruni: its not this guy's fault that the board of directions is filled with morons.

the board should be taken out back and shot.

If it was indeed an under-the-table deal, and I wouldn't be against THAT being the case, just make the board reimburse Duke out of their own pockets. BTW, I saw a article that the AG in NC is investigating this.

As a Duke Energy customer, I agree wholeheartedly with subby.

Sounds like a scam. Is this the next Enron?

Lost Thought 00: FishyFred: downstairs: FishyFred: The one-day chief exec will receive up to $44.4 million in exit payments.

What.

Contracts are contracts. No different than signing a baseball player to a $44 million contract over X number of years, who then has a career ending injury on his first game.

Teams tend to insure large contracts against things like that so they aren't simply out $44 million because of a freak injury.

I wonder if the same thing is common in business.

Yes. Almost all companies take insurance policies out in case their critical members cannot or will not continue working for them, for whatever reason.

Maybe I wouldn't make a good insurance company exec, but never in my most drunken/incompetent moments would I write a multi-million dollar policy that could be invoked by "it didn't work out". At a minimum it would have to involve bodily injury major enough that somebody wouldn't be tempted to inflict it just to get the payout.

IlGreven: FishyFred: The one-day chief exec will receive up to $44.4 million in exit payments.

What.

The sad thing is, anyone who has any more outrage than this is dismissed as a rabble-rouser.

/If you really had any convictions, you'd stop complaining about CEO pay and do something about it.
//And I don't mean passive actions like boycott and Occupy.

I always take action. I sell the stock or don't buy it in the first place.

Snarcoleptic_Hoosier: FishyFred: The one-day chief exec will receive up to $44.4 million in exit payments.

What.

Hey! It was a hard 6 hours!

We say the same thing about an asshole that works in our department.

This Porkins-looking bastid is full-time but roughly works 6 hours a day because he makes sure to get into the office before the director does (tells the director that he starts at 6:00 AM but shows up 10-15 minutes before the director arrives). The fat f*ck then leaves at 2:30 PM.

He's not getting a $44 million payout but the number of hours that he gets paid for that he doesn't work sure has added up over the years.

What's worse than this? Similar things happening in the government heirarchy. Public service golden parachutes that are union guaranteed and contractually bound, some so ironclad that becoming a criminal doesn't disolve the exhorbitant payout.

/ The roman empire never ended, said Philip K. Dick -- but it's about to