Tag: CEO

Bum, Bum, Bumblebee Bum!

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Christopher Lischewski, former Chief Executive Officer and President of Bumble Bee Foods LLC, was sentenced to serve 40 months in jail and pay a $100,000 criminal fine for his leadership role in a three-year antitrust conspiracy to fix prices of canned tuna…

…After a four-week trial in late 2019, he was convicted on the single count of participating in a conspiracy to fix prices of canned tuna. In imposing Lischewski’s 40-month prison sentence, the Court found that Lischewski was a leader or organizer of the conspiracy and that it affected over $600 million dollars of canned tuna sales.

Bumble Bee pleaded guilty and was sentenced to pay a $25 million criminal fine. In September, StarKist Co. was sentenced to pay a statutory maximum $100 million criminal fine. In addition to Bumble Bee and StarKist, four executives, including Lischewski, were charged in the investigation. The other three executives pleaded guilty and testified in Lischewski’s trial.

Of course, the only words we’ve heard from the Fake President about any kind of tuna were bullshit about cans of tuna in protests against his incompetence. Predictable. Sad.

#Goyaway trending after Goya CEO says we’re “blessed” with Trump

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Goya…is facing a backlash after its chief executive met with and heaped praise on President Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday.

On Twitter, #BoycottGoya and #GoyaFoods were trending in the United States, and some Latinos were also using the hashtag #goyaway…

The remark set off a wave of criticism of New Jersey-based Goya, founded in 1936 by European immigrants. Some called for consumers to consider other brands in the canned food aisle.

“Americans should think twice before buying their products,” former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro tweeted.

That smug bigot in the White House has no trouble rallying support from a Tío Tomás. We had one can of something-or-other Goya in the pantry, We fed it to our dog. I hope she doesn’t get sick.

AT&T promises new jobs, gets tax break — cuts thousands of jobs!

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AT&T Liar-in-Chief — Bloomberg/Getty

❝ AT&T in November 2017 pushed for the corporate tax cut by promising to invest an additional $1 billion in 2018, with CEO Randall Stephenson saying that “every billion dollars AT&T invests is 7,000 hard-hat jobs. These are not entry-level jobs. These are 7,000 jobs of people putting fiber in ground, hard-hat jobs that make $70,000 to $80,000 per year.”

❝ The corporate tax cut was subsequently passed by Congress and signed into law by President Trump on December 22, 2017. The tax cut reportedly gave AT&T an extra $3 billion in cash in 2018.

But AT&T cut capital spending and kept laying people off after the tax cut. A union analysis of AT&T’s publicly available financial statements “shows the telecom company eliminated 23,328 jobs since the Tax Cut and Jobs Act passed in late 2017, including nearly 6,000 in the first quarter of 2019,” the Communications Workers of America (CWA) said…

AT&T’s only expansion in total workforce came from acquisition of Time-Warner and two smaller companies. The existing workforce was cut.

Ruling class takes care of their own and no one else. For example —

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Illustration from BIDNESSETC.COM

❝ Bob Dudley, the chief executive of BP, earned nearly $20 million last year – at a time when the company ran up the biggest losses in its financial history and axed thousands of jobs.

The $19.6 million remuneration bonanza was condemned by the High Pay Centre as another example of a company losing “contact with reality” when it came to handing out fortunes to top executives.

The 20% year-on-year increase in salary, shares and pension payments was revealed in the oil group’s annual report.

❝ Plunging crude prices and continuing liabilities emanating from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2011 led BP to report a record 2015 deficit of $6.5 billion.

❝ The company said Dudley deserved his increase in total remuneration because he and his fellow directors had performed strongly at a difficult time…

Does anyone think the 7,000 workers who lost their jobs are off on holiday on the Riviera? They’re going on the dole. Making do until another job comes available in this stellar global economy managed from one disaster to another by pointy-heads on Wall Street and the City of London.

Who will continue to take care of their own.

Monsanto fined for phony accounting – Corporate executives return their bonuses!

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roundup
AP Photo/Jeff Roberson

❝When Monsanto agreed to pay regulators $80 million Tuesday for accounting missteps, the giant agribusiness’s chief executive also chipped in: He voluntarily agreed to return his bonus for the years the problems allegedly occurred.

Hugh Grant, who has served as Monsanto’s CEO for more than a decade, will return more $3,165,852 in cash bonuses and stock awards to the company. Carl Casale, the company’s former chief financial officer, will give back $728,843. It is the first time in memory that senior executives voluntarily agreed to return their bonuses in such a case…

❝Monsanto was accused of booking millions of revenue after launching a rebate program for one of its popular herbicide products, Roundup, but not properly accounting for the cost of the promotion. By 2009, according to the SEC, Monsanto’s Roundup was losing ground to cheaper competitors. It began to offer retailers or distributors rebates in order to encourage them to carry the herbicide despite its higher prices. The program helped boost sales, but when reporting its profits to shareholders, Monsanto did not reflect the cost of the effort, the SEC says.

❝“As a result of the improper accounting, Monsanto met consensus earnings-per-share analyst estimates for fiscal year 2009,” according to the SEC filing on the case.

“This type of conduct … is the latest page from a well-worn playbook of accounting misstatements,” SEC Chair Mary Jo White said in a statement…

❝Grant, 57, should be able to recoup his losses quickly. Monsanto increased his base pay 6.5 percent last year to $1.6 million. He also received a $1.9 million bonus and is eligible for nearly $10 million in “long-term incentives.”

Same as it ever was.

❝An internal whistleblower could collect up to $24 million of the $80 million penalty imposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission against agribusiness giant Monsanto…

The SEC said Tuesday that the St. Louis-based company agreed to pay the $80 million penalty and retain an independent compliance consultant to settle charges that it violated accounting rules and misstated company earnings pertaining to its flagship herbicide product Roundup…

The case came to the SEC’s attention as a result of a whistleblower complaint, according to Stuart D. Meissner, whose…firm Meissner Associates represented the unidentified whistleblower. He noted that the SEC’s whistleblower program allows a whistleblower to collect between 10 to 30 percent of the penalty.

The kind of motivation that scares the crap out of corporate giants like Monsanto.

Billionaire surprised that American voters are unhappy — this is news?

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❝As income inequality and healthcare costs rise in the United States and as an economic slowdown may be on the horizon, one of the world’s richest men expressed surprise that U.S. voters seem so angry in advance of the 2016 presidential election. Speaking at a gathering of corporate and government leaders in Switzerland, Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman told Bloomberg Television that he is bewildered about why Americans seem so discontented.

“I find the whole thing astonishing and what’s remarkable is the amount of anger whether it’s on the Republican side or the Democratic side,” the Wall Street mogul said at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “Bernie Sanders, to me, is almost more stunning than some of what’s going on in the Republican side. How is that happening, why is that happening?”

❝On the eve of the conference, the nonprofit group Oxfam released a report showing that the richest 62 people on the planet now own more wealth than half the world’s population. In the United States, recent data from Pew Research shows the average American’s median household worth has stagnated, as the median household worth of upper-class Americans increased 7 percent. Schwarzman, though, expressed surprise that people are enraged…

Schwarzman’s private equity firm, Blackstone, manages — and makes fees from — billions of dollars of pensioners’ assets, and was recently fined by federal regulators for not properly disclosing fee terms to its investors. The investors harmed by Blackstone’s conduct included public retirement systems in California, Florida and New Jersey.

❝Schwarzman has donated $100,000 to a super PAC supporting Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign and reportedly organized a meet-and-greet session between John Kasich and Wall Street executives, but Schwarzman said on Wednesday that he would ultimately support Donald Trump should his fellow Republican billionaire win the GOP nomination for president. In recent years, Schwarzman has made national headlines likening tax increases on the wealthy to the Nazi invasion of Poland.

Same as it ever was.

CEO retirement savings: Top 100 = what 41% of US families have

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The retirement savings accumulated by just 100 chief executives are equal to the entire retirement accounts of 41 percent of U.S. families — or more than 116 million people…

In a report, the Center for Effective Government and Institute for Policy Studies found that the 100 largest chief executive retirement funds are worth an average of about $49.3 million per executive, or a combined $4.9 billion. David C. Novak, the recently departed chief executive officer of Yum! Brands Inc., is at the top of the list, with total retirement savings of $234.2 million.

In recent years, pay and income inequality across different income groups have received increasing attention in the U.S. Significantly less attention has been focused on the growing gulf in retirement savings, a lack of focus that the study’s authors say they are attempting to address.

“This CEO-to-worker retirement gap is a lot bigger than the pay gap and one more indicator of the extreme level of inequality that is really tearing the country apart,” said Sarah Anderson, the report’s co-author…

Some of the chief executives with the biggest retirement stashes are at companies that have cut retirement benefits for new employees.

For many chief executives, the bulk of their pay often used for retirement comes from deferred compensation plans that permit executives to set aside salaries and bonuses on a pretax basis, with no limits. Lower-paid employees with 401(k) accounts can only set aside $18,000 a year and an additional $5,000 if they’re 50 or older. Many companies offer different investment options to executives for their deferred compensation plans than those offered to 401(k) participants.

In addition to deferred compensation plans, about 30 percent of Fortune 1000 companies in 2013 offered supplemental executive retirement plans, usually calculated by multiplying years of service and the average pay earned during executives’ final years of service.

The report’s authors called for a number of policy changes, including applying to executive compensation plans the same annual contribution limits that cover 401(k) plans and preventing companies from deducting from their taxes contributions to executive pension plans if the employee pensions have been frozen.

You won’t find this discussed in any of the Republican so-called debates. They’re idea of entitlement “reform” is taking social security, medicare and medicaid benefits away from workingclass families.

The Democrat so-called debates? Well, Bernie might bring it up. So might Larry Lessig.

RTFA for a few individual examples of pampered executives.

USDA scrambles to investigate egg lobby

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Joshua Tetrick showing yellow peas which are the base for his egg substitute

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has opened an investigation into the American Egg Board (AEB) after revelations by the Guardian that the USDA-appointed group conducted a months-long campaign against a San Francisco food startup called Hampton Creek.

Joanne Ivy, CEO of the AEB and 2015’s Egg Person of the Year, has stepped down and taken early retirement. She was originally due to leave at the end of the year.

The investigation comes after Utah senator Mike Lee called for an investigation into reports that the government-backed egg lobby had organized a concerted effort to tackle Hampton Creek, a company described in leaked emails as a “major threat” and “crisis” for the $5.5 billion-a-year egg industry…

A USDA official confirmed an investigation was now under way by its agricultural marketing service (AMS) arm, which carries out the day-to-day oversight of boards…

Emails obtained through a Foia request by attorney Jeffrey Light and passed to the Guardian showed what Lee called “a strategic, multifaceted campaign to use the power and resources of the federal government to undermine the economic prospects of Hampton Creek”.

Members of AEB leadership are alleged to have tried to prevent the sale of Hampton Creek’s product Just Mayo at Whole Foods; to have advised Unilever on its lawsuit against the company (including suggesting Unilever solicit action from the Food and Drug Administration); and to have assessed the company’s patents for flaws.

They also joked about killing Joshua Tetrick himself: “Can we pool our money and put a hit on him?” asked Mike Sencer, executive vice-president of AEB member organization Hidden Villa Ranch. Mitch Kanter, executive vice president of the AEB, jokingly offered “to contact some of my old buddies in Brooklyn to pay Mr Tetrick a visit”. (AEB apologized for those statements when contacted by the Guardian.)

While the Egg Board is a “checkoff” organization into which egg farmers are required to pay, it is specifically prohibited from influencing governmental action or disparaging non-egg commodities…

Just Mayo, a plant-based egg substitute, does not fall under the jurisdiction of the American Egg Board. But it caused consternation among its members, especially when Hampton Creek began to win lucrative industry contracts. The product became the mayonnaise of choice for the Compass Group, a catering firm that provides food for school cafeterias and smaller restaurant groups.

I’ve been looking forward to trying Just Mayo since I first saw interviews on AlJazeera America’s TechKnow program. Since then, I’ve seen positive reviews from other folks – and interest in other vegetarian replacements they’re developing for everything up to and including cheeseburgers. A significant part of their mission statement is to diminish and displace the energy wasted by commercial giants like the battery egg producers and feedlot cattle.

Glad to see they’re doing well enough to raise the ire of scumbags like the American Egg Board. Now, we just need to see the USDA do something for American consumers instead of the Agribusiness Mafia.