GM Pays Ex-CEO $8.6 Million

What exactly does an executive have to do to not get a golden parachute? Former GM CEO Rick Wagoner ran the company into the ground, and will now retire with $8.6 million for his trouble. That figure was negotiated down from the $23 million the old pre-bankrupt GM would have had to pay Wagoner. Sorry Rick, but it’s a rough economy.

Reuters:

The value of Wagoner’s retirement package is about 60 percent lower than it would have been at the end of last year, before the largest U.S. automaker fell into a government-funded bankruptcy and its assets were sold to a new GM, federal regulatory filings show.

The former top GM executive reached a retirement agreement with the old GM, now renamed Motors Liquidation Co, on July 8 and will retire officially from the new GM taking benefit cuts consistent with other retirees, the company said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

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Flickr / Franco Folini

Rick Wagoner’s retirement package may barely keep his Hummer in gas, but it’s a pretty sweet deal for the guy who drove what used to be the world’s biggest company off a cliff.