Wachovia Execs may get $98.1 million severance
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Reuters
Wachovia execs may get $98.1 million severance
Monday November 24, 3:18 pm ET NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wachovia Corp (NYSE:WB - News), which lost $33 billion in the last two quarters, said 10 top executives may be entitled to $98.1 million in severance pay after the bank is acquired by Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC - News).
In a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Wachovia said the executives would receive severance under their employment agreements if the merger closes by December 31, as expected. Wachovia said shareholders will vote on the merger on Dec 23.
The 10 executives do not include Robert Steel, who in July replaced the ousted Ken Thompson as Wachovia's chief executive, and does not have an employment agreement.
Wachovia also said a closing would entitle its 11 executive officers, who include Steel, as well as Chairman Lanty Smith to $2.5 million in equity-based awards under existing stock incentive plans. But the executives' stock options are worthless, the bank said.
U.S. regulators pushed Wachovia to find a merger partner after losses soared on a $118.7 billion portfolio of option adjustable-rate mortgages. The bank largely took these on when it bought California's Golden West Financial Corp in 2006.
Wells Fargo agreed on October 3 to buy Wachovia for $15.1 billion in stock, trumping a lower bid by Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C - News). The merger value had fallen to roughly $9.3 billion as of November 21 because Wells Fargo shares had fallen.
Wachovia is based in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Wells Fargo in San Francisco. The combined company would be the fourth-largest U.S. bank, with about $1.4 trillion of assets.
THERE GOES THE RETENTION -Those clown have NOTHING on Bob Bagby. Now THAT guy leveraged marginal ability to his advantage.
Wonder if Senate would like to congratulate them all on their job well done in a panel format.
Bags, was the main culprit, but do not let some of the other AGE board members off the hook. They too, sold everyone right down the river of crap. Guys like Galli, Kessler, Kelly, etc. have flown under the radar, but there are many on that board that deserve much of the blame as well.
I hope they still own their shares. I miss the core group of brokers I knew, but I am glad I left last year.rocky,
I’m with you, in all respects. Just by coincidence, my father-in-law came into the business the same time as Bagby, knew him, and I’ve heard all kinds of stories about what a relative failure he was as a broker (my father-in-law, who’s a great guy, true kid-at-heart) was the #1 producer in his midwestern, regional, firm for a couple decades and managed the #1 office for that firm for about 15 years). He always marvels to me that Bagby was able to weasel his way up the ladder and…the rest is history.
[quote=rocky]Bags, was the main culprit, but do not let some of the other AGE board members off the hook. They too, sold everyone right down the river of crap. Guys like Galli, Kessler, Kelly, etc. have flown under the radar, but there are many on that board that deserve much of the blame as well.
I hope they still own their shares. I miss the core group of brokers I knew, but I am glad I left last year.[/quote] I knew Bagby and will bet he made the huge mistake of holding most or all of his WB stock. Good thing for the 35$ in cash received in addition to the WB stock.Think about how disgusting this headline is - "Wachovia Execs to get $100 million severance". Keep in mind, that only the top 10 executives are receiving this $100 million.
So, instead of them receiving this bonus, do you realize Wachovia/Wells Fargo could KEEP THE JOBS of 2,500 (that's a lot of families) people @ $40,000.00 each per year instead of giving these 10 miserable executives who ran their companies into the ground $100M. Disgusting........