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Sinking ship pays $1 million to stay afloat!!!

([personal profile] ellen_datlow Jan. 14th, 2009 06:19 pm)
I just read in Publishers Weekly that new Borders CEO Ron Marshall will get $1 million base salary plus signing bonus for the first of his three year contract. Then, for the next two years he only gets $750,000. Gee, I'm definitely on the wrong end of publishing.
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Date: 2009-01-14 11:25 pm (UTC)

From: [identity profile] nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com


Haha, don't worry, Borders won't be around for three more months, forget three years!
Date: 2009-01-14 11:43 pm (UTC)

From: [identity profile] ellen-datlow.livejournal.com


Marshall is considered "the last chance for Borders to get itself on firmer financial footing before it faces the prospect of going out of business."
Oh and by the say, outgoing CEO George Jones got a severance package equal to 18 months of HIS base salary plus bonuses (????for leaving the company in the trash?) and an additional $510,000.


I do not get it.

Other than this is very wrong.
Date: 2009-01-15 12:20 am (UTC)

From: [identity profile] txtriffidranch.livejournal.com


It's called an "executive retention bonus", where the money is guaranteed whether or not the company goes under. The big creditors are going to be lucky to get 25 cents on the dollar during the liquidation, the employees are going to be lucky to get their last paychecks, and small book and magazine publishers are going to get worked over with a six-foot sandstone strap-on lubed with habanero juice, but the incompetents that directly caused the situation will always get every last penny promised them.
Date: 2009-01-15 01:52 am (UTC)

From: [identity profile] dqg-neal.livejournal.com


Yes... makes me wonder if they are planting seed money to start a new entity to take over from the ashes.
Date: 2009-01-15 02:37 am (UTC)

From: [identity profile] txtriffidranch.livejournal.com


Not in the slightest. They know that the diseased carcass is already too far gone, and they're planning on taking what they can before it all collapses and they have no choice but to sell everything to liquidators. It'll be Tower Records and Crown Books all over again.
Date: 2009-01-15 12:24 am (UTC)

From: [identity profile] txtriffidranch.livejournal.com


I was so damn sure that Borders would go under right after the new year, but your assessment is probably correct. The fact that my local store has huge "Help Wanted" signs in the front window, in order to have enough hands on deck to replace the ones smart enough to leave now, is confirmation.

A quick question: if Borders goes under, what will happen to the thousands of bottom-of-the-class English majors suddenly left unemployed and unemployable? Well, other than whining about how "somebody should subsidize a new book chain so all these jobs aren't lost"?
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