"The famous "money under the mattress" theory."
Nope, it's the famous "the financial statements as published on the bankruptcy site are completely inadequate to evaluate the company's health and financial performance" theory. Those who insist otherwise are quite simply incorrect.
Bob Keller
All of which can be summed up by the simple fact that Lionel's owners have key information that we don't,
The famous "money under the mattress" theory. Court Financial statements are signed under penalty of purjury by Lionel's CFO to be accurate and complete. I think the recent Korean Brass episode demonstrates that attempting to hide assets has some nasty consequences. Also, Lionel has been paying fees to Earnst & Young for accounting verification. Your theory not only implies perjury but conspiracy as well.
You need to dismiss the fact they make trains and ask yourself, given the published numbers would you invest in their stock? $60 Million in sales, $6 Million loss, Liabilites exceed Assets by $25 Million and everybody is talking about recession.. It's not a pretty picture.
All of which can be summed up by the simple fact that Lionel's owners have key information that we don't, and that one cannot make simplistic assessments of this sort about the company's success from the public information.
It's a well known fact, for example, that leaders of a company under the sort of attack and stress that Lionel has been have be paid a premium for staying on. This salary "bonus" is a traditional and prudent retention strategy that is temporary until the company comes out of bankruptcy. Routine. Common. Sensible.
Not that this obvious truth can or should stop anyone from drawing indubitably erroneous conclusions:).
If the man has turned the company around [which he seems to have done], why not?
Turned around? Negative equity went from $18 to $25 Million and this years losses were $6.4 Million. The entire financial story is on the kccllc website. That's not what I call a turn around.
ogauge wrote:Give it a few years and all manufacturing will be out of china, just the same as Japan and various other initially cheap labor countries. As their econmy grows, that cheap labor ain't so cheap any more and before you know it mfg will be off to the next "cheap" labor coutry. Give it time and it will happen. May take a while, but...blah, blah...
Hearing that from a lot of companies doing business there. They are also not as quality control as they should be. My company has had lots of QC problems with them.
God bless TCA 05-58541 Benefactor Member of the NRA, Member of the American Legion, Retired Boss Hog of Roseyville , KC&D Qualified
ogauge wrote:If only it were possible for them to bring production back over here....
A more likely scenario is that the Chinese will end up buying Lionel with all the cheap dollars we keep sending over there. I doubt they would pay Calabrese that much money.
ChiefEagles wrote:I questioned it. I offered to work for only 3/4 of a million. If the man has turned the company around [which he seems to have done], why not? Well, I do not think anyone is worth 1 M per year. Why we have economic problems in this country.
You get what you pay for. Do you seriously think that what a private company chooses to pay their CEO seriously affects the economic problems of a country? Reduce private debt as well as national debt and you might see an upturn. But no, everybody has to have what everyone else has now whether or not they can afford it. If you can't pay for it don't buy it! Simple. That's why I don't have $1000 dollar engines.
North of the 49th
trigtrax wrote: LOL! How about some insider info? Where's the exit financing coming from? A little journalism if you please. I sit here enjoying my PB&J lunch and ponder how a bankrupt company that lost over $6 Million this year will give it's CEO a 300% salary increase. Is such a question not worthy of a little digging?.....
LOL! How about some insider info? Where's the exit financing coming from? A little journalism if you please.
I sit here enjoying my PB&J lunch and ponder how a bankrupt company that lost over $6 Million this year will give it's CEO a 300% salary increase. Is such a question not worthy of a little digging?.....
Wah, wah, wah, boo, hoo.
Nobody owes you an explanation.
cpsteamer wrote:Obviously Wellspring feels he's earned it and worth it. I don't think anyone here is qualified to question it unless they are privy to Lionel's inner workings. Personally I think Jerry is doing a great job considering the mess he was handed. Ken
Obviously Wellspring feels he's earned it and worth it. I don't think anyone here is qualified to question it unless they are privy to Lionel's inner workings. Personally I think Jerry is doing a great job considering the mess he was handed.
Ken
Modeling the Baltimore waterfront in HO scale
Taking away a performance-dependant bonus will eliminate the incentive to "do better".
Not a wise move IMHO.
Let's see, the guy and his team have negotiated a (likely favorable) settlement of two MTH lawsuits and organized Lionel's impending exit from bankruptcy, not to mention increased the brand's visibility nationwide and increased gross sales by perhaps 10-20%.
Other than that, he hasn't done squat :).
I agree that a company should not just give out raises or bonuses to CEO's just because they are a CEO. That is why everything costs so much, especially insurance like Allstate!
Lee F.
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