Sunday, December 20, 2009

Christmas presents for the corporate bigwigs

More details on the Christmas presents given to corporate management by the board of directors:

  • Gary Pruitt CEO: 450,000 restricted stock units, no appreciation rights
  • Patrick Talamantes VP, Finance: 70,000 restricted stock units; 100,000 in appreciation rights
  • Robert Weil VP, Operations: 80,000 restricted stock units; 120,000 in appreciation rights
  • Frank R. J. Whittaker VP, Operations: 80,000 restricted stock units; 120,000 in appreciation rights
The restricted stock units vest in full on March 1, 2012.  The stock appreciation rights vest in four equal installments beginning on March 1, 2011. The exercise price of the stock appreciation rights is $3.42 per share.

No Christmas presents for the worker bees.  Pruitt's lifting of the companywide wage freeze doesn't count since it happens in 2010, and will be based on the financial situation at each individual paper.
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30 comments:

Anonymous said...

Screw the employees if we don't get our retention money, we will leave the company. Remember, we are here for ourselves, not for you and certainly not for the subscribers. This is about money and what we can get from the carcass of a dying paper.

Anonymous said...

This sort of deal sounds like a backup parachute for McClutchy’s kamikaze pilot, PruBooooo, as if the golden one he has wasn’t enough already. A failing company making a deal for the last carcass meat probably puts the vultures first in line for the bankruptcy (aka) road-kill stage.

Vulture= Predator: somebody who waits for the chance to exploit somebody else when that person is vulnerable

Anonymous said...

Remember the issue of the mock News & Observer front page? Still the best Pruitt smackdown to date IMO.

“One measure of how far newspapers in general and McClatchy newspapers in particular have fallen is a mock newspaper front page created by workers at the Raleigh News & Observer making fun of their McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt (photo). Pruitt, who went on a disastrous spending spree a few years ago buying up doomed newspapers, including the Miami Herald, is widely credited for bringing McClatchy newspapers to the brink of financial collapse.”
http://tinyurl.com/d8ry4e

Anonymous said...

Ditzy Soon Nojob says, “But, but, but, McClatchy has a no-layoff policy.”
“High-profile CEO” says, That was before the little folks realized we were beating the drums for the DNC. You still want Hope and Change, don’t you Ditz, er, I mean Mel?
------
From AJR, August/September 2003

Is McClatchy Different?
The Sacramento-based company, with its hip, high-profile CEO and no-layoff policy, has positioned itself as an alternative to the typical approach to corporate journalism.

Kevin Gregory said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

“A rising tide lifts all boats”

So, this ‘Hopey-Changy’ thing will lift the USS McClatchy (Titanic) any day now?

Bwhahahaha

Anonymous said...

‘Some’ media experts say the print media is experiencing a needed “newspaper cull,” which probably meant winnowing out the inferior newspapers, but who knew the extent of the needed culling?
The KC Star should be “Cull One”
MOO Stan

Anonymous said...

How about culling out some of the corporate losers getting these "bonuses." Isn't gross incompetance grounds for firing?

Anonymous said...

9:23 - Good question. Why hasn’t Gary Pruitt been fired?

Anonymous said...

Why is it that people who have never been near the top of an organization have all the "right" answers and "spot on" criticisms but never get to the top?

Seems odd that in almost every business/organization in the US, the "smart" people never get to the top, only the incompetents.

I can't chalk it up to simply being a McClatchy/Pruitt thing since it dominates almost every publicly-traded companies' Yahoo message board and related blogs like this...

I don't understand.

Anonymous said...

It certainly looks like Wall*Mart snagged off all the competent business people.

Anonymous said...

10:24AM - I am not so sure....

Post from WMT Yahoo message board:

"WMT was once innovative

Now its become a parasite that just devours the American consumer in its quest to eliminate the retailing industry. American should of learned from the Banking system, when they get too big they become a CANCER thats destroys what it once envied. WMT is no longer innovative in its approach to business, there business model has closed there eyes."

Anonymous said...

Why don't they put that money back into the corporation and spare the layoff of how many people that this money would pay the salary of?
What have they sacrificed over the last two years?
Give them the same choice the employees have - sacrifice or quit!

Anonymous said...

11:10AM - There is no cash paid unless the companies stock price improves for the SARs.

The restricted stock grants won't be cash until 2012 and will be based on the stock price at the time.

So, there is no cash to "...put back into the corporation and spare the layoff[s]..."

They only get paid cash if (1) they're around in 2012 and (2) if the companies stock price increases (in the case of the SARs).

Anonymous said...

Do I hear a whine in the lions den.

Dear people: No one forced to you to work for a biased, leftist, irrelevant newspaper. You told us it was about changing the world and not about dollars. Why now is it about dollars. You changed the world for the worst. You have that hopey/changey thing you wanted. Did a tree fall in the forest. ENJOY!!

Anonymous said...

Re: “WMT is no longer innovative”

Looks like no one told the Walmart shoppers that bit of bilge. If I wasn’t saving serious bucks, I wouldn’t be standing in line to save money either, dumb us!

Anonymous said...

As long as the corrupt unions stay out of Wal-Mart, they will stay healthy. Only forcing slug-like, lazy, workers you can’t fire, on them would bring them down, like the auto industry.

Anonymous said...

Gary Screwit made a huge mistake early on when he bought Knight Ridder, and the rest is Pistory.

Anonymous said...

There are smart, respected managers but they lead healthy, fiscally-responsible companies.

Anonymous said...

Question: What to do with the oversupply of old media journalists?

Anonymous said...

Editor's pick: SacBee report shows California's 'green' ink-cartridge recycling fails to cut pollution, or costs -
http://shar.es/1vDOH
==
That report is worth some award or other! Which award are they passing around now?

Anonymous said...

Aon 11:39 Bingo, we have a winner!

Anonymous said...

I can't imagine whey the shareholders should reward this team for their performance or be too concerned about their retention. This just smacks of a sweetheart deal for Gary and his gang without much concern for the interests of the shareholders.

Anonymous said...

5:51PM - Sure. Then they should hire you with your vast corporate level experience to deal with a situation you've only mentally masturbated about. Great.

Anonymous said...

I did not offer my services but you are making profoundly ignorant assumptions about what experience I might or might not have. If you can't argue for why this team of losers and parasites deserves a big payoff courtesy of the shareholders, don't just attack those of us who are willing to argue whey they should not.

Anonymous said...

Mentally masturbated...ha ha ha ha ha...that is so funny ha ha ha.

Someone has to be the butt boy defender of the MNI management team.

Might as well be you.

You seem to be the perfect defender...foul and none to bright.

Anonymous said...

6:01's only defense of the wasteful gifts given to the MNI senior management team but paid for by the shareholders is a vulgar suggestion that a commenter could not have done better.
I think that's the point. Management does not profit from their position but from their performance. It's hard to see how this team can be judged to have performed well for the shareholders. They certainly have not been a good team for the employees.
People like our commenter at 6:01 would drop the conversation to a rude, personal level so that this breech in the fiduciary duty of the board will go unexamined.

The company gets to decide how to compensate the management team but should be held up to public ridicule and, in egregious circumstances, to legal examination of their actions.

Anonymous said...

4:50AM - Sounds like you should file a lawsuit given all the corporate malfeasance you allude to in your post.

I can't help wonder why all you speak to is overlooked by so many people.

What specific breach do you speak of? Your own assessment or a legal breach?

And, as a previous post points out, no cash has been given to the executives. Shareholders haven't paid for anything yet.

These executives have to stay and the stock value go up in order to collect anything.

AKA pay for performance.

Anonymous said...

Bull!
It's "pay for performance" just like Enron or MCI. They got their stock rights which dilute the shareholders at the bottom after presiding over the loss of most of the shareholder value. Why should their grants not be tied to the stock price as of the date of their employment. This is like giving them an upside with no responsibility for mess they have caused.
There is no cash involved. But, make no mistake, the shareholders will pay for these gifts.
Shareholder suits on these matters rarely succeed. A competent counsel will paper the transaction in such a way that a suit is hard to win. I am fine with that but in this case the board should be held up to the ridicule they deserve for rewarding a management team for destroying the company.
The lefties were all over executives stock compensation a few years ago. They should be outraged at this one.

Anonymous said...

Pruitt joined the company in the 1980s, prior to the IPO.