Perks keep rolling at rescued banks

From jets to country club fees, CEOs’ fringe benefits rose 4 percent last year

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By Tomoeh Murakami Tse

updated 4:35 a.m. ET, Tues., Oct . 20, 2009
NEW YORK - Even as the nation's biggest financial firms were struggling and the federal government was spending hundreds of billions of dollars to save many of them, the companies as a group were boosting the perks and benefits they pay their chief executives.

The firms, accounting for more $350 billion in federal bailout funds, increased these perks and benefits 4 percent on average last year, according to an analysis of corporate disclosures filed in recent months.

Some chief executives, such as Kenneth D. Lewis of Bank of America and Jeffrey M. Peek of CIT Group, the major small-business lender now on the brink of bankruptcy, each received about $100,000 more than a year earlier for personal use of corporate jets. Others saw an increase in the value of chauffeured services, parking or personal security.

Ralph W. Babb Jr., chief executive of Dallas-based lender Comerica, was compensated for a new country club membership, with an initiation fee and dues of more than $200,000. GMAC Financial Services chief executive Alvaro de Molina benefited from a $2.5 million payment from his company to help cover his personal tax bill.

"You would have thought that this would be the moment when everyone said, 'Okay, the perks have got to stop — at least while we're indebted to the government,' " said Paul Hodgson, senior research associate at the Corporate Library. "But that didn't happen."

This year may turn out to be different. In June, the Treasury Department prohibited companies receiving bailout funds from reimbursing senior executives for their personal tax payments.

In the meantime, Kenneth R. Feinberg, the Obama administration official assigned to set pay for top executives at seven of the companies receiving the most help, plans to curtail perks such as country club fees when he rules on compensation later this month, according to people familiar with the matter. Perks worth more than $25,000 are getting particular scrutiny from Feinberg.

On average, the chief executives at 29 of the largest public financial companies that have taken bailout funds received perks and benefits worth more than $380,000 in 2008, according to compensation figures included in annual proxy statements and supplied by Equilar, a compensation data services firm. Individually, about half the banks increased their fringe benefits to the top executives. The figures do not include relocation costs and related taxes, typically one-time fees that can skew year-over-year comparisons.

In contrast to the 4 percent average increase in perks and benefits at these companies, the average awarded to top executives at non-financial companies in the Fortune 100 declined by more than 7 percent over the same period, according to Equilar.

Personal use of corporate aircraft and "gross-ups" — when the company pays taxes due on bonuses or other benefits — represented more than half of the $11 million in non-cash pay awarded to the 29 chief executives in 2008. Among the more common perks were company cars and drivers, as well as personal financial and tax-planning services.

'Well compensated'
Although perks represent a relatively small portion of an executive's overall compensation package, they have been targeted some shareholders who argue that these fringe benefits are meant largely to stroke the egos of top company brass.

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"These executives are already well compensated," said Daniel Pedrotty, director of the AFL-CIO's office of investment. "The notion that some of these folks can't even leave a nickel on the floor, that they want to take every last dime and put it on the company card really rubs people the wrong way but points to a larger problem of lack of independence at the board."

Some banks, mindful of the popular resentment over the government's $700 billion bailout of banks and other financial companies, have eliminated certain perks. And a few executives have voluntarily given up benefits that lawmakers have criticized as excessive. At Bank of America, for instance, senior executives will no longer use corporate jets for personal travel starting this year, a bank spokesman said.

Still, some companies that have taken away perks are making it up to executives by boosting their pay. SunTrust Banks eliminated most executive perks in 2008, including financial planning services, club memberships and payment of taxes on the perks, according to a corporate filing. But the bank also noted that "base pay increases were made in 2008 to offset this reduction in perks."

A spokesman for SunTrust, a recipient of $4.9 billion in government funds, said in an e-mail that the bank seeks to "maintain an executive compensation framework that is competitive, appropriate and consistent with industry practice, and we periodically make adjustments in line with that goal."

Corporations have long defended perks as necessary for attracting and retaining talented executives. They also say some perks — corporate jets and chauffeured drivers, for example — are provided for security and to ensure that executives can work efficiently. In fact, it is not uncommon for companies to mandate that their chief executive use the corporate jet and car for all travel. American Express is one such company. Last year, it provided its chief executive, Kenneth I. Chenault, with $415,000 in corporate jet travel for personal reasons, as well as $201,000 for a home security system and $46,000 for security during personal trips.

A spokesperson for American Express declined to comment. The company's proxy statement says it eliminated tax gross-ups as of 2008.

GMAC said it had stopped using its corporate aircraft altogether after receiving a federal bailout in late 2008 and that de Molina, its chief executive, had declined a year-end bonus for 2008. He did receive a nearly $6 million award earlier in the year, however, and GMAC covered the taxes due on that bonus.

De Molina, a former executive at Bank of America who arrived at GMAC in 2007 and became its chief executive in April 2008, was "instrumental in leading the company through an incredibly challenging period and successfully executed a series of actions to stabilize the company," said Gina Proia, a company spokeswoman.

CIT, which cut its staff by 22 percent in 2008, declined to comment. Representatives for Comerica did not return phone calls.

Comment

Everybody that we have bailed out should have their pay and benefits frozen, at least. They are lucky to not be in an unemployment line. A revue of their pay package should be initiated to determine if reductions should be instituted. If the Board of Directors cant, or wont, do it an impartial committee of shareholders should be appointed to determine a fair pay package. The CEOs allow their companies to go down the drain, or should have known it was going to happen, with risky bets and financing, and then have the chutzpa to demand bigger pay packages for their lack of performance. Everybody else gets raises for performance. Why not them? They have NO incentive to do any better because they KNOW that we will bail their sorry butts out again if they screw it up again! We should have let one or two go under as a lesson to the others. Start with the car companies. Let Chrysler go under, or let the unions buy them out.