Businesses covering real-estate losses for top brass
May 14, 2008
Lately, it seems that most companies are taking big hits from just about every angle.
The Wall Street Journal wrote about another source of bleeding money today: executive relocation costs.
Here’s the news peg: Qwest Communications investors are seizing the company’s annual meeting next week as an opportunity to vent their frustrations. See, the company lost $1.8 million on the sale of the former home of the chief executive.
During his recruitment, Qwest agreed to purchase the home if he couldn’t find a buyer. He couldn’t, so Qwest sunk $8.9 million into the house in September. When the home sold in December, Qwest only reaped $7.1 million.
But Qwest isn’t the only “victim” of this kind of loss, the WSJ found:
Other shareholders are in for similarly rude shocks this spring, as companies disclose sizable bills to cover real-estate losses of transferred senior officers. At least eight companies say they’ve spent $500,000 or more to help an executive sell a former residence. Qwest is the biggest spender so far. Others include Boston Scientific Corp., Kellogg Co. and State Auto Financial Corp.
Of course, paying for relocation expenses is nothing new, especially for top execs. But the housing slump’s causing the cost to the company to rise, and tougher disclosure rules mean that the juicy details become common knowledge.
According to the WSJ, Weichert Relocation Resources surveyed 200 companies and found that 68 percent reimburse some or all of a staff member’s loss on a home sale.
Heard of any other egregious losses?
JACKIE SAUTER, Web Editor
Sphere: Related ContentBaltimore chef named CNN Hero
February 26, 2008
After seeing coworkers at the Harbor Court Hotel restaurant struggle to hold down a job, Baltimore’s Galen Sampson decided that when he opened his own restaurant, he wanted to create an apprenticeship program for recovering Baltimoreans. And he did just that.
“It gives our people in transition paid jobs,” he told CNN in the first of three videos on the news Web site. “It also allows us to give them hands-on, real-time instruction.”
Galen and his wife, Bridget, now co-own Dogwood Sustainable Foods, which operates the Dogwood Deli in Hampden.
“She has been very active in the community with people in transition from problems in their past, and I became actively involved with her, helping her teach and doing some cooking,” Galen explains in the second video, A Really Good Team. “When I started working with Bridget in the programs that she had in the city, I started to really see it firsthand.”
The program, Chefs in the Making, will provide training and jobs to 30 people in transition this year.
Sampson was a Baltimore Community Fellow through the Open Society Institute in 2006.
JACKIE SAUTER, Web Editor
Sphere: Related ContentAt Bank of America, avatar recruits talent
January 16, 2008
When I saw the headline “Bank of America hires an avatar” on fastcompany.com, my first thought was “Great. Now I’m not only competing with other living, breathing candidates, I’ve got to beat out imaginary ones, too.”
But when I read the story and visited B of A’s careers page, and the smiling video host walked out of the left side of my screen and promised that B of A offers talented individuals “the opportunity to excel,” I found it hard to hold anything against her. Especially when she saved me some time by pointing out all the different options in the behemoth’s online career center.
Fast Company’s Rusty Weston thinks the bank’s careers site has lots of goodies, including interview tips and a separate section for college students/entry-level workers (who probably turn to the bank’s online presence first in their job search).
Any other large corporations with stellar career sites that you’ve found easy to use?
For a quick look, here’s a few local companies’ career sites: UnderArmour’s, McCormick’s, Discovery Communication’s.
JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor
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