Management employees, including the PUP participants, also were included in the option distribution back in 2003.
That's true. According to the TWU, management and support staff received 2.9 million of the 37.9 million total options distributed to employees:
http://www.twu.org/divisions/air/pdfs/TWUR...ew3-13-07_2.pdf
That would equal fewer than 500 options if split equally between 6000 management and support staff employees; but I dunno how evenly they were divided nor how many management and support staff were on the payroll. I doubt that the PUP/PSP privileged few took a disproportionate amount of options, but anything's possible.
Comparing the PUP payouts, which were based on stock price and a lot of external factors, versus the profit sharing pool, which is based on how the company performed internally, is still a valid point in my opinion.
I also think it's a valid comparison, as long as that 3/4 billion dollar elephant in the corner of the room is also acknowleged.
The PUP payouts do reflect the fact that AMR stayed out of bankruptcy and righted its ship without the court's help. But the stock price benefitted just as much (if not moreso) from the fact that management at other carriers far far more inept.
Also agree. Of course, avoiding Ch 11 meant that AMR's stock wasn't canceled and didn't fall to zero. The rank and file helped in that cause with their massive paycuts.
And the PUP/PSP payouts' methodology was clearly flawed - they were enhanced by the fact that Southwest's stock was massively overvalued many years ago and has since languished for the past 6+ years. The payouts were enhanced by the fact that many of the peer group canceled their stock in Ch 11. The methodology was clearly flawed.
But those sneaky, greedy management types are probably capable of designing a management incentive scheme that would have paid out just as much money if it had been based on internal profitability or other legitimate measurements instead of relative stock price performance.
That keeps me from getting too worked up about it - one way or the other, management was probably going to take its quarter billion dollar pound of flesh for watching over AMR while it stayed out of Ch 11. The payouts so far pale in comparison to the UAL payouts and are about equal to the DL management payouts (Grinstein was the only one not to share in the largesse, as he was already a billionaire). Haven't yet analyzed the NWA or USAir payouts, but I doubt their management kept their hand out of the new stock cookie jar.
