Other perks available to executives include special retirement packages such as lifetime employment as a tenured professor and other deals that were widely criticized as excessive 'golden parachutes' when they were exposed by the San Francisco Chronicle in 2006".
He will be able to determine salaries, bonuses and retirement packages for all executive officers and the 100 most highly paid employees at each company.
Carl Schmitt, vice president at WestWard Pay Strategies, an executive compensation consulting firm in San Francisco, believes that Mr. Cheney's deal will bring more public scrutiny to executive pay in general and to retirement packages in particular.
Senior officials said they will install Washington attorney Kenneth R. Feinberg with the power to determine compensation, including retirement packages, of senior executives at seven firms that have received massive federal bailouts, such as Citigroup chief executive Vikram S. Pandit, Bank of America's Kenneth D. Lewis and Fritz Henderson of General Motors.
For participating companies there will also be a surtax of 20% on retirement packages of top executives who are involuntarily terminated from their firms, or lose their jobs as a result of the firm's failure.
Nevertheless, the top executives at Merrill Lynch, Citigroup and Countrywide received lush pay and retirement packages.
She provides detailed accounts of executives gouging the funds to pay for their own exorbitant retirement packages.
Considering the dismal recent headlines about revolving-door chief executives, it's refreshing to see that many of the C.E.O.'s who will receive big retirement packages have spent their working lives primarily at their current companies ("The New Executive Bonanza: Retirement," April 3).
As an example, last March, 68% of Swiss voters approved a measure giving shareholders the right to block executive and Board pay packages, outlawing "golden parachutes," and increasing transparency regarding loans and retirement packages, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Like other deals struck in the age of the imperial chief executive, Mr. Welch's retirement package -- negotiated in 1996, five years before he stepped down as chief executive -- treats him like a sovereign entitled to all the fruits of the realm.
