GM's Henderson: No "Definition" Yet on Exec Pay
By Michelle Krebs August 12, 2009Although General Motors Co. has submitted compensation proposals for its 100 executives to 
U.S. Department of Treasury "pay czar" Kenneth Feinberg, CEO Fritz Henderson said Tuesday the GM executives who fall under the still-pending government compensation guidelines effectively are working without knowing exactly how much they're being paid.
"We need to get some definition" about what type of executive compensation may be considered acceptable, said Henderson, who admitted government oversight of pay structure is limiting GM's ability to attract outside talent.
GM and six other companies -- including Chrysler Group LLC, GMAC Financial Services Inc. and Chrysler Financial -- must submit their exec-comp pay plans to Feinberg under terms of their federally funded Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) loans. Feinberg is to review the details and determine whether the executives are overcompensated; he then can suggest revisions that presumably are more reasonable for executives who work for companies that have been forwarded billions of dollars in taxpayer funding.
Henderson said during a media preview of its coming new models at its Milford, Michigan, proving grounds that most executives are working for salary only until Feinberg and his department review GM's compensation submissions and hand down a ruling.
Henderson also spoke about GM losing two prominent environmentally related executives in the past month. Larry Burns, GM's former vice president of R&D and strategic planning retired in July and Beth Lowery, vice president for environment, energy and safety departed last week.
"We've lost a lot of talented executives," Henderson said. "Other people have to step up."
GM apparently has no plans to hire direct replacements for Lowery or Burns; Henderson instead suggested appropriately experienced teams will fill the void, along with executives with new titles, including vice chairman for global for product development Tom Stephens.
Henderson also surprised the media by saying GM's suppliers seemingly are healthier than many industry watchers have assumed. Or at least they're still delivering components as required, anyway. "We haven't lost a single unit of capacity due to supplier distress," said Henderson, adding, "Suppliers have done a very good job of coping and adjusting." -- By Bill Visnic
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Maybe GM should hire executives from its suppliers who probably don't allow their executives to loot the company. I don't understand how GM could have "lost a lot of talented executives" because GM previously demonstrated that its executives were incompetent, uninterested in running a profitable business, or just decided their job was to obtain taxpayer handouts.
I am available to take enormous amounts of cash to run GM into the ground. I'll even settle for half of what the incompetent recently departed execs took home. What a deal!
OK, all you MBA's at the RenCen, here's some "definition":
Pay- $.10 for each retail unit sold; $.05 on each fleet unit, based on your area of operation; Global, North America, Asia etc.
Health/Dental- GM pays 50% of the plan cost; you pay the other 50%
Retirement/Life Insurance- 100% of the last six month's income prior to your retirement/death. Life
Insurance benefit terminates at retirement. Need more? Buy more.
No company-provided vehicle- Buy/lease your own. Put your money where your heart is. Everybody.
Ed, Tom, Bob, too.
Bonus/Chargeback- Pays/returns the percentage of annual earnings based upon the percentage of
market share increase/decrease for that period.
You do the math, it's a fair contract. You're either committed or omitted, the easy money is over.
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