September 11, 2008
The Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae Exit Packages
– Broc Romanek, CompensationStandards.com
As could be expected, the phone started ringing off the hook when it was announced that the government would be taking over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. These journalists posed the big question: what would the departing CEOs be taking home with them?
And they are not the only one posing the question – as this WSJ article notes, the Presidential candidates and some US Senators have weighed in by writing letters urging the Federal Housing Finance Agency to stop payment (the GSEs have their own regulator, the FHFA). Under a new law enacted in July, the FHFA has the authority to approve pay packages and prohibit or limit severance pay.
It’s too early to tell what will happen – although some outsiders have made calculations regarding what they are entitled to. According to the WSJ article, in an interview with the PBS “Nightly Business Report” on Monday, the FHFA Director James Lockhart said, “We’re not going to try to get part of the money back.” According to media reports, it seems like one CEO seems willing to rein in his own package (and has hired his own lawyer with his own money) whereas the other doesn’t appear as willing (and has hired his own lawyer with his former employer’s money).
It is noteworthy that the new Freddie and Fannie CEOs “will have salary and benefits significantly lower than the old CEOs,” which is great news since it’s the type of leadership that Corporate America has been sorely lacking. Someone stepping up and not demanding the excessive pay of peers.
And what am I telling the journalists who call me? I explain how to implement a clawback provision with “teeth” – as laid out in our Winter 2008 issue of Compensation Standards. The WSJ article cites statistics of the growing numbers of companies with clawback provisions – but I wonder how many of those really have teeth to avoid the sort of media crisis that happens when a company falls in the toilet and the CEO heads off to the links.
By the way, check out the investor relations’ home pages for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Not a word – or link to something that mentions – the government takeover. And the IR profession wonders why it’s importance is diminishing…