Wake Up! Waukesha
Jay, who has lived in the Waukesha area for over 20 years, is an active volunteer who has served on numerous local boards and committees. He's married to Colleen with three kids having gone through the Waukesha schools. He is the VP of a local distribution company.
M & I Bank Executives receive million dollar payouts while tens of thousands suffer...
Are you kidding me?!
M & I today announced “bonuses” for its’ top executives totaling almost $65 million!!
That’s right – BMO/Harris is rewarding these soon-to-be ex-M & I employees for their exemplary work in taking down what was arguably Wisconsin’s premier banking institution. My previous blog detailed the sordid tale of two M & I business plans – local, and “Out of State/Out of Mind”.
These M & I executives engineered as self-serving a deal as I have ever witnessed in Wisconsin, and shareholders past and present are powerless to do anything about it.
Facts:
Tens of thousands of retirees who were holding M & I shares as a conservative, dividend-paying part of their retirements have had to make do without this income because of M & I’s wildly speculative investments in Florida, Nevada, and Arizona. They now face a “no-dividend stock” worth 19 pennies on the dollar scenario for their faith in M & I. Students whose parents invested for their college tuition by purchasing M & I stock in their EdVest accounts? Poof! Gone!
A Wisconsin company is no longer, and the new corporate offices will be in Chicago…which brings me to….
Thousands of hard-working M & I employees will be impacted, negatively, in the near future. That’s how these “deals” pay for themselves – Reduce duplicative services (Read: Job Elimination), close overlapping bank branches (Read: Job Elimination), and replace higher salaries with lower ones (Read: Middle and Upper-Mid Level Executive Job Eliminations).
It’s not rocket science and there is no magic formula – It’s simply “Reduce costs…and reduce head count”, and there go the jobs.
This is a slaughtering of the innocent while “The Romans” feast. Words cannot adequately describe the bile which rose in my throat when I read this article. M & I Chairman and CEO Mark Furlong is reported to be receiving an $18 million payout. 16 other top M & I execs will split the remaining $47 million.
Honestly – I am furious and frustrated. Furious because executives from a publicly-traded company who acted irresponsibly with other people’s money are now being richly and grossly rewarded beyond the wildest dreams of most of us. Frustrated because there is no penalty to the M & I executives who were the architects of this man-made disaster. Does anyone realize CEO Furlong, acting with the invisible M & I Board of Directors(Oh-oh, many of these same directors are M & I employees, as well as those who gave tacit approval to the “Titanic-Like” M & I “Plan” also serve on many other major corporate Boards…) , put this banking travesty together? What other business would give bonuses of millions of dollars for this shoddy, down-trodden performance? And does anyone think these self-serving millionaire brain trusts will be any better at a new location? Of course not…If they knew better, M & I would still be solvent…
What’s the lesson? None! The very wealthy fox will soon be guarding the BMO/Harris henhouse as the newly enriched M & I Executive Team will be in charge of whatever the new banks are called…
I am disillusioned, disenfranchised, and……….. disgusted…
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