A Losing Year for Countrywide
Another little tidbit buried in the business section of the New York Times (“A Losing Year for Countrywide, but not for Chief“, NYTimes 4/25/08 page: C3). It describes the compensation package for Angelo R. Mozilo, the CEO for Countrywide, during a year when Countrywide lost $704 million dollars and lost 79% of its share value. This was the first time in more than 30 years that Countrywide lost money.
Before we review what this business genius made in the last year of his tenure, let’s see what the consequences of his decisions were… As already stated, the company lost $704 million and share holders lost a huge amount of share value, Countrywide was then bought at firesale prices by Bank of America… Oh, and 11,000 rank and file employees lost their jobs. And the Countrywide meltdown was a major contributor to the current national and international credit crisis.
Mr. Mozilo, on the other hand, made:
- $121.5 million from exercising Countrywide stock options
- $20 million from additional stock and option awards
- 1.9 million in salary
- $176,513 in “other compensation”
- $44,454 in usage of corporate aircraft for personal use
- $8,581 for country club dues
- $23,755 in usage of company cars
He was also “entitled” to $37.5 million in severance pay ($3,409 for each of the 11,000 employees laid off) but was shamed into turning it down.
Just another example of why this country is in decline. We have a whole class of executives who are in their positions, not out of merit, because they know how to work their connections, select a board of directors full of cronies, and engineer obscene compensation packages. These guys through their incompetence and corruption have done immense harm to their employees, their investors, their customers, the tax payers, and the entire country but are themselves totally shielded from the consequences of their actions.
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