EchoStar cuts CEO's bonus in half

[John Corn]

WASHINGTON, March 25 (Reuters) - EchoStar Communications Corp. (NasdaqNM DISH - News), the satellite TV broadcaster whose attempt to buy Hughes Electronics Corp. last year failed, reduced its chief executive officer's bonus by 50 percent, a U.S. regulatory filing on Tuesday showed.

CEO and Chairman Charles Ergen, 50, was given a $375,000 bonus in 2002 instead of $750,000 he received the previous year. He did not receive a raise from his $250,000 salary.

Full Story (http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/030325/tech_echostar_ceo_1.html)

[Cyclone]

I guess Charlie will have to eat Hamburgers instead of Cheeseburgers this year.

[RichW]

I wonder if he complained to himself! :)

[raj2001]

Originally posted by Cyclone
I guess Charlie will have to eat Hamburgers instead of Cheeseburgers this year.

You mean the IRS will have to eat Hamburgers instead of Cheesburgers...

[Kagato]

Ahh, he lost the company huge cash, his bonus should be Zero.

[raj2001]

Hey John, could you consider adding a space between the colon and the D so it will show up as NasdaqNM: DISH instead of the :D smiley?

[DarrellP]

I would love to see Charlie's bonus pegged to the PQ of Dish, I'll bet he would crank up the bitrate faster than you can say "Dish PQ sucks".

[RichW]

Echostar may have lost money but they gained market share away from DirecTV during the same period. Charlie's base compensation is very low compared to most CEOs of companies of similar size. His real wealth, of course, comes from owning the company. CEOs whose fortunes are tied to equity positions generally do better their competitors who pay CEOs seven-figure salaries. Compare Nike to Rebook and Adidas and you see what I mean.

"Cheap Charle" is frugal, even to himself, for a reason. It is not out of some Scrooge-like compulsion or mean-spritedness, but a drive for long-term success in this business.

[Jacob S]

Awe, thats too bad, at least it was not an increase like Delta's CEO got and layoffs. He is rich enough as it is and is still making his money off his stocks.

[djlong]

Let me tell you a story about Putnam Investments - my former employer.

The mutual funds were underperforming - meaning 'we' lost more value than other companies (like Fidelity or Schwab). Last year, the CEO had his bonus cut in half (from $16M to $7M) based on 2001 performance. In 2002, the layoffs hit like crazy. I survived 4 rounds of them, #5 (end of Feb 2003) got me, #6 (a week later) got some of my friends. Now, his 2003 bonus, based on 2002 performance, is also going to be $7M. Several hundred peope lost their jobs AND departments are now running with skeleton crews just so he could have his bonus.

His bonus was FAR larger than the bonus of the PARENT COMPANIE'S CHAIRMAN (Marsh McClennan owns Putnam Investments).

Over 100 people are jobless so that Larry Lasser could have his bonus.

Bonuses in the hundreds of thousands are not uncommon for CEOs. And, face it, other than the DTV debacle (which, you could argue, the government killed), E*'s performance (subscribers) has been pretty good - ESPECIALLY in these kinds of economic times.

[mainedish]

Echostar is doing very well. I have Directv but Dish is still a company to watch out for. Things can change so fast . I worry more about who may buy Directv now.

[john123]

Maybe the money they save can go into acquiring the YES network.

[Richard King]

Maybe the money they save can go into acquiring the YES network.Nah, Dish wants to make money, not lose (not loose) money. It would be interesting though if they bought YES and all that goes with it including the Yankees. They could then send the signal back to Wyoming by land link and refuse to sell it to cable. Sort of a Philadelphia in reverse. :D

[gawise]

What a bunch of P.R. hooey. Who IS Echostar? Who is the controlling vote? What a token gesture Charlie PERFORMED (yes, his entire persona is nothing but a performance) for shareholders who lost a lot MORE than half of his bonus in his botched attempt at DirecTV!!

Greg in Baltimore

[Richard King]

Ah, Greg, they have a compensation commitee that is selected by the board of directors. They determine the compensation and bonuses, not Charlie. As for the losses on the attempt, they were a bunch smaller than most expected thanks to to the moves with Vivendi Universal. Overall, it was a good attempt. If you compare what Charlie makes as the CEO of Echostar with other companies with similar revenue, he is very much toward the bottom of the scale. Of course most of his money is made in the appreciation of the stock that he owns, owning about 1/3 of a company of this size puts him in pretty good shape.

[Eyedox]

IMHO he should get NO bonus since he had to raise our fees when he screwed up the DirecTV merger and agreed to pay some stupid multi-million dollar breach of contract fee. Nice work!