Atlanta – The Home Depot Inc. is paying new chief executive Frank Blake a fraction of what it paid his predecessor, Bob Nardelli, and has taken the unusual step of promising Blake no severance package if he leaves.
But executive-compensation experts don’t expect the decision announced Wednesday by the world’s largest home-improvement store chain to set a trend in corporate America, despite the ire that hefty salaries have drawn among investors.
“I wish it were a trend,” said Lowell Peterson, a New York labor lawyer who is familiar with compensation issues. “I suspect it’s unique to Home Depot because the pay and severance package given to Nardelli was so out of line.”
Atlanta-based Home Depot said in a regulatory filing that Blake could earn as much as $8.9 million in total compensation this year.
That’s a fraction of the $25.7 million a year on average that Nardelli was earning at Home Depot, excluding stock options.
Nardelli resigned this month after six years at the helm of Home Depot amid a furor over his hefty pay and Home Depot’s lagging stock price. He was replaced by Blake, who was Home Depot’s vice chairman.
Nardelli’s severance package was worth about $210 million.
Home Depot said Wednesday that Blake’s compensation arrangement does not provide for payment of severance upon termination.
A Superior Court judge on Monday denied a request by a group of shareholders of Home Depot to temporarily block the company from paying Nardelli any more of his severance package.
