The concentration of wealth at Mirant

Mirant Shareholder Rights Group Enraged by Excessive Executive Compensation Practices

From the article:

The Mirant Shareholder Rights Group today expressed its outrage at the excessive compensation of Mirant Corporation's management team, in spite of their track record of failures.

The Mirant Shareholder Rights Group believes this is a flagrant abuse of the bankruptcy process, and that Mirant Corporation has clearly demonstrated that it is not interested in any level of accountability to its shareholders. While the Company has lost billions of dollars and is now under Chapter 11 protection, its top executives have, and continue to be, rewarded handsomely.

For 2004, Mirant's Chief Executive Officer, Marce Fuller, received $842,000 in base salary as well a more than 100% bonus, bringing her total compensation to nearly $1.7 million. Despite remaining in bankruptcy in 2005, Ms. Fuller again will receive approximately $1.7 million in compensation. Additionally, if Ms. Fuller resigns or reaches a mutual agreement with Mirant to terminate her employment, she will receive a lump sum payment of $3.4 million in cash upon separation.

Other executives have seen exceptional increases in their compensation and bonuses as well. Curtis A. Morgan, Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer, more than doubled his base salary from 2003 to 2004 from $156,822 to $427,350 and more than quadrupled his bonus, which went from $124,000 to $543,483. Similarly, Douglas L. Miller, Senior Vice President & General Counsel received nearly five times his 2003 bonus of $62,708 in 2004, the sum of which was $298,313.

"Since when did bankruptcy mean enriching creditors and management?" asked Rick Doutel, a Mirant shareholder. "What is going on at Mirant and in this bankruptcy process is astounding. From excessive management compensation and attempts to suppress court filings from public scrutiny, to obvious efforts to hide value and enrich creditors, we believe the Mirant bankruptcy will one day serve as a case study in corporate greed."