lundi 26 juillet 2010

Tony Hayward is getting his life back

I can't wait to see how much under-the-table money in addition to the stated severance policy BP chief Tony Hayward is going to get as compensation for his "stellar" job performance:
Hayward's departure is seen by most as inevitable after he made himself the public face of BP's cleanup efforts in the first few weeks of the spill and committed a series of gaffes that fueled public anger with the company's management of the disaster.

His testimony at a congressional hearing last month -- during which he stonewalled the panel for nearly eight hours -- didn't win him any additional friends across the Atlantic.

Under the departure plan to be discussed by the board later Monday, Hayward may not leave immediately, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, giving BP time to find a replacement and organize a smooth transition. Read more details on potential departure.

On Monday, the Journal as well as several other publications reported that veteran insider Dudley would take the helm this fall. Hayward would stay on the board until the end of the year and Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg would keep his job.

One of the reasons that Hayward would stay into the fall is that the company would like to complete the drilling of its relief well -- the only permanent solution to the spill -- first, so as not to saddle a new CEO with the stigma associated with the leak.

The relief well is expected to be completed within three weeks but work was interrupted this weekend because of a tropical storm.

According to BP's annual report, any executive can be dismissed at any time with the payment of one year's salary.

Hayward earned 1.05 million pounds ($1.6 million) in base salary last year; that amount totaled nearly £3.16 million counting his annual performance bonus and other benefits, but excluding long-term incentives.

Somehow I don't think it's going to take him up to two years to find another job as a CEO. After all, Robert Nardelli almost ran Home Depot into the ground in 2007 and surfaced as Chrysler CEO later that year. And we all know how THAT turned out. Funny how the rest of us have to perform, but CEOs just have to know the right people on corporate boards.

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