Ford's ex-CEO Nasser paid $17.8 million for 2001

Dearborn April 9 Reuters reported that Former Ford Motor Co.Chief Executive Jacques Nasser, ousted last October, received $17.8 million in compensation for 2001, a year the company reported a staggering $5.45 billion loss, the automaker said on Tuesday.

The compensation, a 32 percent increase over what Nasser received for 2000, is in line with what he would have received if he had kept his job and met 100 percent of last year's performance goals, a Ford spokesman said.

Despite what many critics have derided as Nasser's dismal performance in 2001, some analysts said his compensation came as little surprise, as many of the top executives who run corporate America negotiate golden parachutes for their departures and other financial protection.

``While it seems a little wacky, it doesn't amaze me that this happens. I don't think it's out of line, frankly, with what you would see at General Motors or Microsoft.'' said James Glickenhaus of Glickenhaus & Co., a New York money management firm.

Richard Block, a professor of labor and industrial relations at Michigan State University, said it's not unusual for corporate executives to do extremely well, regardless of how well the company performs.

``Ford did not have a good year and it appears that Jacques Nasser had a good year,'' he said. ``It certainly is inconsistent with what would be expected.''

Nasser earned $12.1 million in 2000 as he grappled with the crisis that erupted over deaths and injuries from rollovers of the popular Ford Explorer sport utility vehicle. That figure included salary, bonus and other compensation.

Ford suspended bonuses for all executives in 2001.

MORE CASH COMING

Nasser will receive the cash value of 350,000 Ford shares within 18 months from his departure date, or about $5.3 million at the company's current stock value, the company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

As part of a long-term incentive plan, it said the Lebanese-born Australian would also be eligible to get up to 750,000 shares of Ford stock if the company met certain performance goals.

Nasser's 2001 compensation includes Ford stock options that the company estimates could be worth as much as $12.9 million if he held them until their expiration in March 2011.

The strike, or exercise, price of $30.19 for the options is double Ford's current share price of about $15.04 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Nasser's departure capped a rocky 34-month reign as head of the world's second-largest automaker.

Last year's loss -- Ford's first full-year loss since 1992 -- included the cost of eliminating 35,000 jobs, or about 10 percent of Ford's work force, and closing at least three North American assembly plants

Ford Chairman William Clay Ford Jr., the great-grandson of founder Henry Ford who ousted Nasser and assumed the role of chief executive, has pledged to forgo a salary this year while he enacts a painful turnaround plan aimed at returning the company to profitability.

But Ford received $1.5 million in 2001 as chairman, most of it in the form of a restricted stock award, according to the company's SEC filing.

'UNACCEPTABLE' RESULTS

Despite Ford's seemingly generous treatment of Nasser, Bill Ford, as the wealthy family scion prefers to be called, makes it clear in his company's annual report that the firm went into a tailspin while Nasser was still at the controls last year.

``Our results in 2001 were unacceptable,'' Ford says in the report, copies of which were distributed to reporters on Tuesday, along with the automaker's proxy statement.

``We pursued strategies that were either poorly conceived or poorly timed. The real cause of our poor performance, however, was that we lost track of the things that make us great.''

Among other legacies from the Nasser era, the annual report notes that Ford will likely write down $2 billion or more in goodwill this year from its investments in British car-repair chain Kwik-Fit and other side businesses.

Ford's 1999 investment in Kwik-Fit was championed by Nasser as part of his bid to push Ford beyond its traditional role as a manufacturing company and make it a diversified provider of consumer products and services.

But Ford, which now wants to sell Kwik-Fit as part of its back-to-basics turnaround strategy, states in its annual report that it paid $1.1 billion over the fair market value of net assets acquired when it bought the company for $1.6 billion.