LOS ANGELES (AP) – KB Home Chief Executive Jeffrey T. Mezger has been awarded a $6 million bonus for his job performance in fiscal 2007, according to a regulatory filing Friday.
The company’s compensation committee also designated bonuses ranging from $350,000 to $450,000 for three other senior executive officers, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
KB’s committee also determined that any fiscal year 2008 incentive compensation for Mezger and three other executives will be tied to performance goals based on pretax income or loss by the company.
The filing did not specify the performance goals.
KB Home, one of the nation’s largest homebuilders, has been battered by the U.S. housing slump.
In its fiscal year 2007, ended Nov. 30, the company lost $929.4 million, or $12.04 a share, versus a profit of $482.4 million, or $5.82 per share, a year earlier.
I wonder what the bonus would have been if they had managed to turn a profit last year?
No news here… socialism for the wealthy… Affirmative Action for the well-connected.
Harvard and most of the Ivy League has ‘legacy’ admissions programs. But of course, talking heads complain about the ‘abuses’ by the minorities.
Framed in “class issues” like this… and people understand…. the game is rigged, period.
Fannie Mae and the Fed are apparently here to ‘guarantee’ … what… that the wealthy and well connected are taken care of?
Oh, but what will the Libertarians and what’s left of Republicans cry about? The little people, and small abuses.
These “performance” bonuses seem to have become an entitlement.
What a huge desparity in pay between ceo and average worker.Mgt always wonders why people get angry when they get a 1% raise,and are told it is due to performance.Its like the saying “life is like a tree full of monkeys.The monkeys at the top look down and see smileing faces,the monkeys on the bottom look up and see nothing but ass*&@#s”.
Tyrone-
Exactly. There are those executives that bring value to the table- the company was going down the tubes or something, but some hero comes in and rescues them. Those guys earn the big bucks, and deserve it.
I’ve also seen the companies where the CEO is a nice guy- he’ll refuse the bonus when others are being laid off, a “share the pain” attitude. Sadly, you don’t see that kind of leadership as often any more. Now they seem to live by Budweiser’s old motto: “You’ll only go around once in life, so you have to grab for all the gusto [money] you can.”
Tyrone, I suspect a lot of the recent bonuses are born of the following questions: ” Can we possibly afford anyone better? What if he quits and the replacement is worse? Remember the severance package we authorized? Don’t you think we should update ours? Do we need his vote?”
UNDER the stewardship of Dow Kim and Thomas G. Maheras, Merrill Lynch and Citigroup built positions in subprime-related securities that led to $34 billion in write-downs last year. The debacle cost the chief executives their jobs. In any other industry, Mr. Kim and Mr. Maheras would be pariahs. But in the looking-glass world of Wall Street, they — and others like them — are hot properties. The two executives are well on their way to reviving their careers, even as global markets shudder at the prospect that Merrill and Citigroup may report further subprime losses in the coming months.
From NYT http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/business/yourmoney/27kim.html?_r=5&ex=1359176400&en=d8d795124e9a7bee&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&o&oref=login
This is GREAT! I see an emerging market here so I think I’ll get my product out there so everyone has a chance to buy. Hand made Guillotines. Eat Cake my A$$!
He gets 6 million in BONUS while I loose my $60,000.00 a year job. I was the busyiest KB Home Customer Service Representative in San Antonio in 2007 (check the numbers) and they laid me off. The kicker is, they kept on a CSR that was forging signatures.
They were the number 3 builder in San Antonio last year and currently they are 11th. Those people only care about grabbing as much as they can for themselves and the h*** with the rest of us working stiffs making them the big money. They need to realize that if they took care of their people the people would take care of them. But the dollar signs get in the way.
Mark Couture
Former KB Home Customer Service Rep, San Antonio, TX
[Slight edit T.]