Only Five GM Execs on Pay-Czar List Involved in Car Business
October 27, 2009
The new compensation plan for General Motors Co. CEO Fritz Henderson made the 
headlines last week after particulars of the ruling from Kenneth Feinberg, the Obama administration's "pay czar" became known. But there were many other interesting details in that report - including the fact that of the 20 highest-paid GM executives whose pay packages had to be approved by Feinberg, only five work on the operational side of GM.
Fifteen of the 20 executives whose compensation packages came under review have nothing to do with GM's automaking business - they are employees of Promark Global Advisors, GM's asset-management company that until this past March was known as General Motors Asset Management.
Promark, based in New York City, manages a reported $130 billion in assets for all manner of foundations and employee-benefit plans that invest funds allocated mainly for pensions.
Rules governing the seven companies that received billions of dollars in loans from the Troubled Assets Relief Program contain the provision that compensation for each company's highest-paid executives must be approved by Feinberg. The rulings for executives of the financial institutions that received TARP loans exploded on Wall Street last week when it became known many executives would see pay cuts approaching 90 percent.
For GM, Feinberg wrote in a letter that "The relatively heavy concentration of Promark employees (among the 20 executives for whom GM had to submit compensation plans) resulted from the method used to calculate a Most Highly Compensated Employee's compensation under the rule." The "rule" to which Feinberg refers is the Department of Treasury's Interim Final Rule on TARP Standards for Compensation and Corporate Governance. -- Bill Visnic, Senior Contributing Editor
Photo by GM
GM CEO Fritz Henderson is one of only five GM executives on the car-side of the business whose pay package required government approval.
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:40 AM under GM , News , Personalities | Comments (0) | digg this | Seed Newsvine
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