Léo Apotheker, fired by Hewlett-Packard, will walk away with $23 million for 11 months' work.
Léo Apothekerâ??s short, turbulent reign as the chief executive of Hewlett-Packard was by nearly all accounts a disaster. The board demanded his resignation, and if ever there was a case for firing someone for cause, this would seem to be it.
So why is H.P. paying Mr. Apotheker more than $13 million in termination benefits?
Just three years after the financial crisis generated widespread public outrage that Wall Street chief executives walked away with hundreds of millions in bonuses and other compensation after driving their companies into insolvency and plunging the nationâ??s economy into crisis, multimillion-dollar pay for failure is flourishing like never before. H.P. is simply the latest example, albeit an especially egregious one. Itâ??s hard to fault Mr. Apotheker for taking what H.P. offered. But among the many questions shareholders should be asking the board is why it approved an employment agreement for Mr. Apotheker that arguably made it more lucrative for him to fail â?? and the sooner the better â?? than to succeed.
Read Full Article »