April 16, 2004—On a day when the New York Times points out in a front page story that the movement to reform corporate governance is losing momentum, I thought it would be nice to bring back Gold Star Fridays. Hard to believe that it's been about six months since I've pointed out something ...

April 15, 2004—Xcel Energy (XEL) , a Minneapolis-based company on the S&P 500, gave one of its senior offices one heck of a send off when he resigned last August, according to its recent proxy. James T. Petillo, who is known as Tom, received a $2 million severance payment from the company. Combined with other ...

April 14, 2004—Each year, when HCA's (HCA) proxy comes out, investors learn a little more about the sweetheart deal between the hospital giant and a private company run by the son-in-law of former HCA Chairman and CEO Dr. Thomas Frist, Jr. The deal has long been criticized by investor advocates. The private company, MedCap, ...

April 9, 2004—Every since Healthsouth blew up last year, Caremark Rx (CMX) has been working overtime to distance itself from the company, even going so far as to pick up and move from Birmingham to Nashville. Healthsouth's former Chairman and CEO, Richard Scrushy, faces an 85-count federal indictment. In addition, 15 former Healthsouth executives, ...

April 8, 2004—In the proxy it filed earlier this week, Alliant Energy (LNT) noted that it had given its former CFO, Thomas Walker, a $680,000 bonus after he resigned at the end of August last year as part of his severance agreement and release. That's more than twice the salary he received in 2002, ...

April 7, 2004—Have you ever had to pick up and move because your spouse or significant other found a job someplace else? It happens all the time. And while some companies will provide minimal help to the non-employee, such as a courtesy interview or some local contacts, they rarely hand out a chunk of change because ...

April 6, 2004—Imagine how your boss might feel about you only showing up to work 25% of the time. How long do you think you'd be able to keep that job before being booted out the door? My guess is not very long. Former U.N. Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke, who's on the board at Quebecor World ...

April 5, 2004—Winners of the Pulitzer Prizes will be announced later today at Columbia University. Because this is journalism's top award, and because the last 2 major publicly traded newspaper companies filed their proxies on Friday, it seemed like as good a time as any to take a look at executive compensation in the newspaper ...

April 2, 2004—So now that FASB has officially declared that companies need to stop burying their stock option expenses in the footnotes, look for things to really get ugly. Ten years ago, opponents of stock option expensing, led by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, managed to stop FASB by painting the proposal as anti-American, as stifling innovation, as ...

April 1, 2004—Gap Stores (GPS) , which has long been criticized for its cozy relationship with Fisher Development, a construction company owned by Gap Chairman Donald Fisher's brother, finally seems to have gotten it. Fisher Development, which up until 2 years ago, served as general contractor on practically all new store construction and renovation projects ...