Dick Grasso’s secretary made a whopping $250,000 a year, and his two drivers made $125,000 apiece, according to a 127-page report being circulated about Grasso’s own outrageous pay package.
The report, written by former federal prosecutor Daniel Webb, looks at spending at the exchange under Grasso, who was booted after it was revealed that he had taken the exchange to the cleaners, walking away with some $197 million.
Industry sources say assistants for the nation’s top execs pull down $100,000 to $125,000 a year.
Others at the exchange were also vastly overpaid.
Co-Presidents Robert Britz and Cathy Kinney – former Chairman Dick Grasso’s chosen successors – both raked in a total of about $13 million in salary, bonus and benefits in the past five years, and both accumulated an additional $22 million in a retirement plan that is not yet fully vested. That number will grow if they stay on.
In total, the exchange’s top five executives have retirement packages worth $73.2 million; the top 17 senior vice presidents are due about $55 million; and 36 other officers are owed $4.8 million. In 2001, Britz and Kinney made $2.3 million apiece – more than double their $1 million bonus in 2000.
The Webb report is to be discussed at a NYSE board meeting today. It examines Grasso’s spending, and details who knew what about how much he was getting paid.
Grasso’s own pay included $139.5 million in deferred compensation and retirement benefits, paid soon before he was booted. He also was to get another $48 million that he failed to mention during his first official compensation disclosure.
When an uproar followed his eventual admission that he was to get the extra $48 million, Grasso agreed to forgo that extra amount. Now it’s unclear whether Grasso will give up that money or fight to keep it.
Grasso is also owed $9.6 million in severance pay.
The Webb report is expected to show which board members played a hand in helping Grasso secure his millions. That information could act as a road map for New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and the Securities and Exchange Commission, who are expected to go after Grasso for his money.
Calls to Grasso’s lawyer, Kenneth Edgar, were not returned, and the NYSE declined comment.