BP CEO Tony Hayward Gets Golden Parachute. Is $18 Million Too Much?
"World News" wants to know what you think: Share your comments below.
July 27, 2010— -- With BP's leak in the Gulf still under control thanks to the successful cap, the company took aim yesterday at controlling its battered public image. Controversial CEO Tony Hayward was ousted from the executive suite and replaced by an American, Bob Dudley.
Hayward earned the public's ire after comments he made suggesting that he wanted the spill to end so that he could have his "life back."
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BP Chairman Carl-Hernric Svanberg promised that "BP ... will be a different country going forward," and even Hayward himself admitted that his position was untenable.
"I believe that it is not possible for the company to move on in the United States with me remaining as the face to BP," Hayward told journalists on a conference call.
Still, Hayward is hardly being thrown on the street. He will receive a year's salary, worth $1.61 million, and he'll also keep his approximately $17 million pension fund. He will also take a job at a BP outpost in Russia.
So, while the CEO is being sent to Siberia, our question to you today: Is Tony Hayward's $18 million-plus severance package too much?