A Very Rich Adieu for Nabors CEO

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: The Wall Street Journal.

BUSINESS OCTOBER 31, 2011
BY MARK MAREMONT

In one of the largest executive paydays in recent years, Nabors Industries Ltd. is giving its chairman $100 million in cash in a severance-style deal, even though he isn't leaving the company.

Eugene M. Isenberg, 81 years old, had been chairman and chief executive of the oil-drilling company since 1987. Late Friday afternoon, Nabors said it was promoting his longtime lieutenant, 57-year-old Anthony G. Petrello, to CEO, but that Mr. Isenberg would keep his job as chairman.

The shift triggered a clause in Mr. Isenberg's employment contract, entitling him to a payment of $100 million "as a result of this ...



Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204528204577007932167790556.html

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The article is on the front page of today's paper, just below the fold.

I was going to post this in the "STOCK MARKET WATCH" thread, but Pale Blue Dot seems to have taken the day off.

I don't own any Nabors stock. I owned shares of Tyco back when Dennis Kozlowski was using shareholder money to throw lavish parties for himself, and I own shares of Hewlett-Packard now. As many of you know, HPQ recently gave a lovely parting gift to its departing head honcho, Léo Apotheker.

Apotheker served less than 11 months as CEO. He received over $13 million in compensations: a severance payment of $7.2 million, shares worth $3.56 million, and a performance bonus of $2.4 million.

And, please, don't bring up Kerry Killinger and Washington Mutual. That still hurts.

Things like this make me feel like occupying Wall Street.

[doc03]

1. He gets $100,000,000 after 11 months, I got a $10,000

golden parachute after 39 years and 51 weeks. Sound fair to me.

[doc03]

2. The average life expectancy of an 81 year old American

male is 7 years so chances are he will have to get by on just $14,285,714.00 a year. Of course he probably gets a stipend of a pension and then there is his SS. My heart bleeds for him.

[idahoblue]

3. More on Nabors

"On June 24, 2002, Nabors Industries changed its place of incorporation from Delaware to Bermuda. In its 2002 annual report, Nabors estimated that this restructuring lowered its effective corporate tax rate by 9 percentage points in 2002. The table shows that Nabors's effective tax rate before 2002 was 36.9 percent and after 2002 was 21.7 percent -- a 15.2 percentage point reduction. If the preinversion tax rate of 36.9 percent had prevailed, Nabors would have incurred $652 million of additional tax expense on the $4.3 billion of profits earned from 2002 through 2009."

http://www.tax.com/taxcom/taxblog.nsf/Permalink/UBEN-86GPTN

[dotymed]

4. This is sickening.

THIS is a perfect example of why OWS must prevail.

[SoapBox]

5. ...makes me sick to my stomach.

THIS is another reason that I want OWS to grow and evolve. I want to see OWS CANDIDATES
on ballots all across America, at all levels of government from libraries and parks, to the White House.

Time for America to be for the 99%.