From: The Daily Reckoning
Rome, Italy
Wednesday, 16 April 2003
"After a year of scandal and fraud allegations at
Merrill Lynch & Co., not to mention a battered stock,
investors might reasonably have expected the Wall Street
giant's top brass to feel some pain in their paychecks,"
begins an article in the Boston Globe. "Instead, the
chairman and chief executive of the nation's largest
brokerage each took home a $7 million cash bonus - seven
times the sum each had received in the prior year. At EMC
Corp., the state's largest technology company, chief
executive Joseph Tucci failed to meet the profit goals his
board of directors had set for him. But that didn't stop
the board from awarding him $7.1 million last year, even as
shareholders saw the stock price plunge 76 percent. Tucci's
cash bonus suffered a mere scratch, falling $25,000, to
$675,000. In January, he received 75,000 options to buy
shares at just a penny each."