So-called “golden parachutes,” written into the contracts of those executives in case of a sale or takeover, could trigger payments estimated at $28 million for Chief Executive Kevin Marsh and roughly $12 million each for two other SCANA leaders, according to The State newspaper’s review of the company’s federal filings.
The Fortune 1000 company’s executive pay has enraged S.C. legislators who are investigating the nuclear project’s demise and power customers who still are paying an average of $27 a month for the abandoned reactors.
Total compensation for SCANA’s executive team has nearly doubled over the past 10 years, as company leaders accepted millions in bonuses for their work on the doomed project…….
‘Golden parachutes’ common
Golden parachutes are common in the corporate world, where companies want executives to put shareholders’ interests ahead of their own, according to University of South Carolina management professor Anthony Nyberg…….
$3 million in V.C. Summer bonuses already paid
As the power bills rose, so did SCANA’s executive pay.
Total compensation for SCANA’s company’s executive team rose to $14 million in 2016 from $8.5 million in 2007, the year S.C. legislators passed a law that green lighted the nuclear project.
Since 2008, Marsh’s team also has collected nearly $3 million in performance-related bonuses for their work on the doomed V.C. Summer project, according to documents SCANA recently provided to a state Senate panel investigating the nuclear venture.
More than $432,000 of those bonuses were paid in 2016, after a Feb. 5, 2016, independent report diagnosed critical problems at the Jenkinsville site.
“That’s just absolute insanity,” state Rep. Kirkman Finlay, R-Richland, said Thursday. “How do you pay a bonus on a plant that is a year from being bankrupt?”……
HOW MUCH COULD EACH GET?
Golden parachutes written into the contracts of SCANA’s top executives ensure each could be paid millions of dollars if the Cayce-based company is sold. According to the utility, here is how much each would have been owed if those provisions were triggered in December 2016:
▪ Chief executive Kevin Marsh: $28 million
▪ Chief nuclear officer Stephen Byrne: $12.8 million
▪ Chief financial officer Jimmy Addison: $11.8 million
▪ Senior vice president Keller Kissam: $5 million
▪ Former SCANA general counsel Ronald Lindsay: $8.8 million (1)
(1) Subsequently, retired and no longer eligible for a payout
SOURCE: SCANA’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/news/local/article180190446.html
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