Alan Bennett, the 525th CEO of H&R Block Inc., is being forced to eek out a living for he and his family, having been guaranteed to make just $2.55 million in his first year on the job, not including stock options and other perks.
According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Kansas City-based H&R Block, who last week memoed its field leadership team, warning them that during a time of "belt-tightening," raises will be put on hold, will pay Bennett a base salary of just $950,000 a year, with customary health and employment benefits.
Bennett's salary, earning him 24.4 times the median salary for Anmericans, is bolstered with the following benefits:
* A sign-on bonus of $900,000;
* Bennett wil receive a minimum guaranteed bonus of $700,000 for fiscal 2011, making him the only manager to earn a bonus at H&R Block since 2007.
* Bennett also will participate in H&R Block's long-term executive compensation plan, which awards him an option to buy 1 million shares of common stock at $14.37 a share. Since the stock price is almost certainly be below the cost of a rotisserie chicken by 2011, this perk is meaningless.
* Bennett also receives "reasonable and customary furnished housing and rental car expense while in Kansas City in connection with the company's business."
* Bennett and his family can use H&R Block's private jet for one round trip a week between his Connecticut or Florida residences and Kansas City. This benefit is available to every District Manager in the company who wishes to use it. See note #1, below.
#1: Just kidding. DMs don't get sh-t.
Bennett, an H&R Block board member complicit in its failure, took the reins last week after CEO Russ Smyth ran screaming from the corporate offices, as if his ass was on fire. Bennett had held the role before Smyth's two-year reign-of-terror, serving as Chairman Richard Breeden shill after Mark Ernst resigned and went into exile in November, 2007.
H&R Block recently wrapped up a tax season referred to in SEC filings as a "Screwed Pooch," in which the tax preparer posted a 5.1 percent drop in revenue and 1.3 percent drop in earnings. These losses stem largely from a business models that dragged the company down like an anchor on a bag of toasters.
Block also missed opportunities early in the tax season, when they couldn't steal clients from rival Jackson Hewitt, even though JH had to use Gambino Crime Family loanshark Anthony "Fat Tony" Campese to secure funding for its RAL product.
The Wall Street Journal recently downgraded Block's stock from "Sell" to "Wipe Your Ass With."
