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January 11, 2007

Oh, That's Lovely!

Investors Sue to Block Former Home Depot CEO's $210 Million Severance Package

Home Depot Inc. (HD) investors on Wednesday asked a Georgia state court to issue an injunction blocking the retailer from paying former Chief Executive Robert Nardelli a $210-million severance package.

"Nardelli's severance package is a final, indefensible step by the board of directors in wrongly over-compensating an unsuccessful chief executive," plaintiffs said in papers asking for a temporary restraining order.


And truer words were never spoken. A warm Swill salute to our Real JeffS for the heads up!


Posted by tree hugging sister at January 11, 2007 03:52 PM

Comments

I've been waiting for something like this.

Home Depot stockholders: Hells yeah!

Posted by: Nightfly at January 11, 2007 04:12 PM

Yay!

Posted by: The_Real_JeffS at January 11, 2007 04:27 PM

I know it is our duty as humans to get ourselves the best deal but the greed of these scumbags is beyond normal. Perhaps they are all Aliens in human skin like that recent Dr Who episode. Not that I ever watch Dr Who, I saw a trailer for the show during Benny Hill..whoops

Posted by: colin at January 11, 2007 05:04 PM

I can't believe you're siding with Barney Frank.

As far as Nardelli's success goes, pick your metric. The stock price didn't advance, but he made Home Depot into a much more profitable company.

Posted by: Nobraienr at January 11, 2007 05:46 PM

I suddenly feel dirty...

Posted by: tree hugging sister at January 11, 2007 06:01 PM

I'm sure not siding with Barney Frank. As Nobrainer said, the company did well

"Nardelli was a nuts-and-bolts leader. He helped increase revenue and profits at Home Depot and increase the number of stores the company operates. Home Depot's earnings per share have increased by approximately 150 percent over the last five years. But the public discussion about his pay and the company's stock price became a distraction."

The company's income and profit have climbed quite steadiluy for the past 10 years. Here are the net income numbers for the past 10 years:
937.7
1,160.0
1,614.0
2,320.0
2,581.0
3,044.0
3,664.0
4,304.0
5,001.0
5,838.0

In the past 10 years the company has made some 30 billion dollars net profit. Billion. It made some $20 billion profit in the six years this guy was there, more than doubling annual earnings.

I think he's earned every penny.

That the stock price has languished shows that he was more concerned about the company's bottom line than pursuing the strategies that the 'experts' love to puff up stock prices but that usually seem in the end to ruin the company. Is his compensation huge? Sure it is. But it's a drop in the bucket compared to what he made for them.

Posted by: Mr. Bingley at January 11, 2007 06:17 PM

If they GAVE him $50 MIL to go away, there'd still be a healthy bump in profit sharing for the folks who still had a job there.

NO human being ON THIS EARTH is worth that much money as a goodbye present or bonus or ANYTHING.

Sorry, they're not. It's obscene.

Posted by: tree hugging sister at January 12, 2007 07:54 AM

As somebody said, the going price for anything is what someone is willing to pay for it.

Doesn't matter if anyone else agrees or not, the company/stockholders thought he was worth it. From the numbers quoted above, I'd tend to agree.

Posted by: Firehand at January 12, 2007 01:31 PM