“At the end of his notice of resignation, the employee does not receive termination compensation. » This is not an invention, it is what is written in the French Labor Code. If you decide to leave your company and file your “dem”, the only sums to which you will be able to claim will be your remaining salary, your paid leave and potentially some bonuses if they are linked to your employment contract. For the rest, you will have nothing. But there are exceptions and Carlos Tavares is one of them.
The boss of the Stellantis automobile empire announced his resignation with immediate effect on Sunday due to “different points of view” between the board of directors and the Portuguese leader, explained Henri de Castries, administrator of Stellantis. According to France Info, Carlos Tavares will not leave empty-handed. Already crowned with a crazy salary of 36.5 million euros for the year 2023, the powerful automobile boss should also pocket “a few tens of millions of euros”. He is not the first to offer himself a large check which strongly resembles what we call a “golden parachute”. Here is our top 5 (+ bonus).
Tom Enders (Airbus)
He spent nineteen years in the management bodies of Airbus, contributing to the good financial health of the French aircraft manufacturer. In 2019, Tom Enders saw his board of directors abandon him, pushing the boss of the aeronautics giant to set sail. But not without anything. Airbus offers its manager to leave with the equivalent of 36.8 million euros, in the form of bonuses and clauses of all kinds. The revelation of this figure, confirmed by Airbus, caused a real uproar, including in the ranks of the government.
Antoine Zacharias (Vinci)
He was for a long time the highest paid boss in France. At the head of the public works empire Vinci, Antoine Zacharias had pocketed more than 200 million euros in salaries in six years. Enough to see the future with peace of mind. But as that wasn't enough, the group decided to give him astronomical sums at the time of his forced departure. He then pockets 13 million euros and offers himself a guaranteed retirement of 2.5 million euros per year and capital gains on 12 million shares.
The businessman then went into exile in Switzerland. Explaining that he had been pushed to resign, he had taken legal action to claim fortunes from Vinci but had his requests dismissed. He was also convicted in 2011 of criminal charges for “abuse of power”, with the maximum fine by the Versailles Court of Appeal. Antoine Zacharias had to pay 375,000 euros. A trifle.
Philippe Varin (PSA)
We thought that Stellantis could have learned “the Philippe Varin lesson”. While he was boss of the PSA automobile group (which is part of Stellantis), the boss almost left with a “top pension” of 21 million euros. Faced with criticism, he ended up giving up the sum, settling for a small pension of 300,000 euros per month.
Serge Tchuruk, Patricia Russo and Michel Combes (Alcatel-Lucent)
Looking at the record of its former managers, we say that the Alcatel-Lucent group would have done better to launch into the manufacture of parachutes than telephones. On several occasions, managers of the telecoms group swallowed severance pay of several million dollars, while the company continued to cut corners and lay off workers. In 2008, Serge Tchuruk resigned when the company was doing very badly. He then pocketed 5.7 million euros. A few months later, Patricia Russo did the same, with the tidy sum of 6 million euros in her suitcase. Under the leadership of the two leaders, just over 16,000 people were laid off from the group.
A few years later, the telecoms group reproduced the same pattern, this time announcing a bonus of 14 million euros for Michel Combes. Leaving for Numericable-SFR after three years at Alcatel, the boss faced a torrent of indignation. His remuneration is then reduced by half, or approximately 7 million euros.
Thierry Pilenko (TechnipFMC)
He was at the head of an empire but fragile. Executive president of the Franco-American group TechnipFMC, Thierry Pilenko received close to 14 million euros when he left in May 2019. The previous year, his group had lost two billion dollars.
The bonus: Jean-Marie Messier (Vivendi)
This is undoubtedly the most incredible story in this top 5. Jean-Marie Messier, the man who wrote in a book that golden parachutes were not justified, had demanded a fortune from Vivendi at the time of his departure: a check for 20 million euros, reimbursement for work on his apartment in New York (nearly a million euros), health insurance and some personal support for him and his wife. After years of legal battle, he was finally convicted even though he had not received the promised amount.
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