After Jack Welch retired from General Electric it wasn’t until a divorce settlement forced the disclosure of his retirement benefits package that anyone took any notice. At that time, the scandal surrounding Mr. Welch was that his perquisites were valued at $2.5 million a year, and included luxuries such as the use of an $80,000-per-month Manhattan apartment owned by the company, court-side seats to the New York Knicks and U.S. Open, seating at Wimbledon, box seats at Red Sox and Yankees baseball games, country club fees, security services and restaurant bills. No one at the time of his departure had valued Mr. Welch’s full retirement package either, which – at almost $420 million – dwarfs the perks package that Mr. Welch ultimately relinquished.
Since then, multi-million dollar severance and other separation packages, commonly referred to as “walk-away” packages, have become so commonplace for CEOs that when HP fired Leo Apotheker with a $12 million guaranteed cash payment it barely registered. Accelerated equity awards along with substantial pensions and other deferred compensation all but guarantee significant payouts at many of America’s largest corporations in every termination situation except for a termination “for cause.” This report goes back to 2000 to examine the largest golden parachutes and other termination packages of the past decade, many of which have never been quantified before.