Imation's CEO races to exit door, grabs $4.8m golden goodbye Imation CEO Mark Lucas has bowed to the inevitable after losing an activist investor proxy war, and is set to exit the company he failed to turnaround. Lucas became Imation chief in 2009 after predecessor Frank Russomanno outstayed his welcome and drove the company into a loss-making cul de sac through over reliance on tape …
Might seem a good description but carries with it the possibility that these contract T&C weren't carefully thought out - given the way boardrooms always reward failure I would be surprised if this generous exit gift was somehow accidental.
We need a 'throw them to the lions' icon - and possibly 'ticket to swim in piranha tank' in case there's any peasants around here who don't have a handy coliseum lying about the place.
Came to voice my scepticism on that "feckless individuals" thing, saw that the first person to comment thought something similar...
Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me if there was a "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" understanding between the CEO and the people who helped put him there with a cushy, failure-proof contract.
No way of proving that or of knowing exactly what form any kickbacks might have taken, but it says a lot about modern corporate culture that this is a plausible- if not probable- explanation for the situation.
"Getting nearly $5 million in contractually-obliged pay in such circumstances of company impoverishment suggests the contract Ts&Cs were written by feckless individuals on the board. The same mistake is unlikely for the newbie that Imation is currently seeking."
It is one giant Merry-Go-Round in business. Especially here in the Good Old USofA.
Fuckup one business as CEO...get shown the door with millions in hand...get hired somewhere else..."rinse and repeat"...over and over again.
And why should Imation be any different than the rest? Most of the CEO contracts, in the US anyway, are of the heads-I-win, tails-you-lose category. No matter what, the CEO gets paid handsomely for all that risk taking, heavy golfing, and mutual backscratching of their ilk.
I once worked for a fellow who seemed to have substance abuse. The substance was the company cash, with lavish company parties and probably other stuff I did not know about. He was a hands-off executive. Come to him with a problem to discuss and maybe solve, and he would dismiss you, telling you to go work it out with your colleague, the source of the intractable problem. After a few years of this, he moved on to a smaller company, got it acquired, walked off with big paycheck. Then another company. ibid. Then an even bigger name three-letter computer company. Same result. A well-compensated serial killer of companies. What an act!
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