Skip navigation
MOST POPULAR RELATED TAGS
  • TOPICS
  • SECTORS
  • COMPANIES

Current DateTime: 07:47:26 09 Nov 2009
LinksList Documentid: 24355697
powered by digg
See all Play-by-Play postsSee all Morning Call posts
Text Size
Dec.22
10:44 AM ET
Friday, 22 Dec 2006
Pfizer's McKinnell - The $200 Million Dollar Man
Posted By:Mike Huckman
Sectors:Health Care
Companies:Pfizer Inc

Talk about holiday cheer! Former Pfizer CEO Hank McKinnell is walking away from the drugmaker $200 million richer. This despite investor anger about his rich retirement benefits. CNBC'S Mike Huckman has the lowdown on McKinnell's millions.

Pfizer [PFE  Loading...      ()   ]fired McKinnell as CEO last July and stripped him of his chairmanship 2 months earlier than expected this week. But according to this SEC filing posted on the web after the market close yesterday, McKinnell is none the worse for the wear.

The company he worked at for nearly 4 decades and ran for about 5 years says it won't see revenue growth until at least 2009. (It's cutting billions of dollars in costs, letting thousands of employees go - and that was before the loss of a key developmental drug earlier this month, so it could even get worse.) But Hank McKinnell will be sitting pretty. Pfizer shares fell about 40% on McKinnell's watch. They've risen about 3 bucks since around the time he was ousted.

Pfizer says McKinnell is getting an $82 million pension. (He can get one big fat check or draw a whole bunch of relatively smaller ones over several years.) He has $78 million in deferred compensation coming to him. That's money he earned but let ride for example in Pfizer stock.

And then McKinnell will get another $39 million in severance bonuses and other cash and stock including compensation for vacation time he did not use. The total value of his additional time on the clock - more than $300,000 for a grand total of $199 million.

In a research note to clients this morning Miller Tabak Healthcare Analyst Les Funtleyder figures the exit package works out to "A little over $2 million for every billion dollars in market cap lost during his tenure."

He says "Though this will receive some media attention, we view this as more annoying than material."

A Pfizer spokesman says the company is fulfilling its legal obligation to honor the terms of McKinnell's contract which was signed in 2001 - what he called a "Different time in the company's history". He says he doesn't know if McKinnell has told Pfizer how he wants his money, whether he'll take it all at once or spread it out.

(PFE)
Loading...       (%)

© 2009 CNBC, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Tools:
PrintEmailAdd This share icon
  • digg share

CNBC HIGHLIGHTS

  • Do free market libertarians really believe what they say about ethics and shareholder value? The Big Money takes a look.
  • Jim Cramer
  • Cramer did the research and found eight stocks that lead the pack. Read on to get his top picks.
  • On the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, many in the former Eastern Bloc recall communism fondly.
  • Gavel
  • Software, biotech firms, even banks are watching a particular Supreme Court argument today.
  • From politicians to CEOs to companies, here's your chance to vote for the winners and losers of 2009.
  • A new sinister Internet viruses can turn you into an unsuspecting collector of child pornography.
ADD COMMENTS
Remaining characters


Current DateTime: 03:21:08 09 Nov 2009
LinksList Documentid: 29778428

Current DateTime: 01:47:27 09 Nov 2009
LinksList Documentid: 29779196

Current DateTime: 06:53:35 09 Nov 2009
LinksList Documentid: 29779199

Current DateTime: 01:47:27 09 Nov 2009
LinksList Documentid: 29779198
  Data is a real-time snapshot  *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes
Global Business and Financial News, Stock Quotes, and Market Data and Analysis

© 2009 CNBC, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.
A Division of NBC Universal
Thomson ReutersThomson Reuters