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"The biggest problem is to figure out what to do with all of the money."
Charter Communications President and CEO Neil Smit steered his company straight into bankruptcy, and still got paid double his salary he earned the year before.
Charter, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection March 27th in order to rid itself of a pesky $8 BILLION dollars in debt apparently is no reason Smit should not get a doubling of his salary, becoming the highest paid executive in St. Louis and walking home with briefcases stuffed with $7.4 million in salary, bonus, non-equity/”cash” incentives and other goodies and perks.
But this Money Party is just getting started for Smit and his pals at Charter. In a convenient move just two weeks before the company ran crying for protection from big bad creditors, Charter established some new executive incentives designed to reward the same guy in charge of the company when it went bankrupt with up to a $6 million dollar bonus if he helps the company find its way off the courthouse steps and back into regular business. But he also apparently deserves a bonus on top of his bonus — the company will also pay him an additional $2.5 million in annual performance bonuses if he manages to actually… do his job.
Those that will help him in that endeavor are also set to be richly rewarded. The company hired Gregory Doody in May as “chief restructuring officer” for a bargain: just $60,000 A MONTH, or $720,000 a year.
Smit got paid a pretty penny for joining Charter in 2008 in the first place, before the crash and burn, as the St. Louis Business Journal reports:
On top of his $1.34 million salary, Smit’s updated employment contract in 2008 provided him with a $2 million signing bonus and about $1.2 million in retention bonus pay. He earned about $2.8 million through Charter’s performance-based bonus plan. Although equity awards were not included in calculating the Business Journal’s highest-paid list, they brought the book value of Smit’s total compensation package to nearly $15.4 million.
We at Stop the Cap! believe in public service and doing the right thing, so we’re offering our free advice to help Charter restructure itself out of bankruptcy: fire the guy who shepherded the company there in the first place.
Other stories of interest:
- Groton, Massachusetts Approves Verizon FiOS: Loudest Complaint? Why Isn’t It Here Yet.
- Time Warner Money Party – Adding Insult to Injury
- Broadband to Enjoy Continued Robust Growth: Five Million New Subscribers in 2009
- Unions Say Frontier-Verizon Deal Means Less Money for Broadband
- The End is Near: FairPoint Could Go Bankrupt By Year’s End, Company Says in SEC Filing
[...] you try and hang on by keeping customers from fleeing for the limited alternatives. You also overpay your management to make sure they don’t flee with annoyed customers. Charter CEO Neil Smit, who waltzed [...]