As was predicted here last year (see post) after the disastrous shareholder meeting, highly overpaid Home Depot CEO Bob Nardelli was fired today by the Board of Directors. As a parting gift, the Board paid him an amazing $210M in severance (not to be confused with the tens of millions of dollars he has been paid so far), which would seem to be a little generous for a CEO who presided over a 9% drop in the stock price during his 6 year tenure while the overall market and Lowe's both significantly increased in value. Even funnier is that Nardelli can receive yet another $18M in "entitlements" over the next 4 years if he doesn't violate his non-compete - given his performance over the last 6 years, wouldn't you actually encourage him to go to a competitor?
Now it's time for the entire Board of Directors to resign, although I'm sure it will never happen since they would have to admit to effectively giving away huge sums of shareholder money. To reiterate, CEO's are like my children - they always want dessert and junk food, and it's up to the parents (in this case, the Board of Home Depot) to actually act like adults and not give in to CEO demands for these remarkably huge and risk-free pay packages for CEO's who create zero value.
I worked at the Nardelli HD. I hated it. Everyone hated it. Hopefully, now they can get back to the business of home improvement, and away from the bullshit.
Posted by: Sandra | January 07, 2007 at 06:08 PM
...Nardelli was an overpaid tyrant...quick to promise performance and quick to make excuses why he failed...but oh did he like to mistreat the woefully underpaid, overworked, and underappreciated employees!
Posted by: Moose | June 03, 2009 at 03:17 PM