It is infuriating to discover that Equifax CEO Richard Smith is being lavishly rewarded for being a miserable failure. With 90 Million unearned dollars.
By Jen Wieczner
The CEO of Equifax is retiring from the credit reporting bureau with a pay day worth as much as $90 million—or roughly 63 cents for every customer whose data was potentially exposed in its recent security breach.
Richard Smith, 57, is the third Equifax executive to retire under pressure following the company's massive data breach revealed earlier this month, putting the personal information of as many as 143 million people at risk.
Equifax (EFX, +0.43%) said Tuesday that as a condition of Smith's retirement, he "irrevocably" forfeits any right to a bonus in 2017, an amount that under normal circumstances would have totaled more than $3 million—the bonus he received in 2016—according to the company's retirement policy.
But the CEO is still set to collect about $72 million this year alone (including nine months' worth of his $1,450,000 salary), plus another $17.9 million over the next few years. That's when the rest of Smith's stock compensation hits a few important milestones or "vests," allowing Smith to essentially put it in his bank account. Altogether, it adds up to a total potential paycheck of more than $90.1 million, according to Fortune's calculations based on Equifax securities filings.
In announcing Smith's retirement, Equifax said it reserved the right to change the "characterization of Mr. Smith's departure" following the completion of an independent review of the data breach and the company's handling of it. That means that if the review finds fault with Smith's actions leading up to and following the hack, Equifax could still retroactively switch his official reason for leaving from "retired" to "fired."
To make this injustice even worse President Trump thinks Equifax CEO Richard Smith and his pampered, privileged ilk need a generous tax cut! Trump wants to let Richard Smith pocket an additional $4.05 Million from his undeserved $90 Million compensation package.