Former General Motors Corp. Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner, who was eligible for $20.2 million in retirement pay under previous agreements, will get about $8.5 million over the next five years, the company said.
Wagoner, who was pushed out March 29 by the Obama administration as part of the eventual bankruptcy of the Detroit-based automaker, will retire Aug. 1, the company said today in a regulatory filing.
He will get $1.64 million annually in the next five years under an executive retirement plan, as well as $74,030 a year for the rest of his life under a salaried-employee retirement program, according to the filing.
Wagoner’s retirement package was one of the unanswered questions when the U.S. Treasury formed General Motors Co. from assets of the former GM last week as part of a 40-day bankruptcy process. After his ouster, Wagoner had remained on the payroll, earning a salary of $1 a year.
Wagoner, 56, will also receive an existing life insurance policy, which the company has maintained for his benefit since Jan. 1, 1997, or its cash value, now $2.57 million, the automaker said in the filing. He worked for GM for 32 years.
The original Wagoner pension under two retirement plans included a $68,900 yearly amount and five annual payments of $4.5 million, according to the company’s annual report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on March 5.
The company in its filing today said that his executive retirement pay was lowered “consistent with the reductions in pension benefits of current GM retirees.” That pay was trimmed by about 60 percent.
Asked to Leave
Wagoner, who had been CEO since June 2000, was asked to leave GM as part of the automaker’s restructuring, which President Barack Obama said hadn’t gone far enough. GM has lost about $88 billion since 2004, its last profitable year.
