The folks at Boston 2024 have released the names of their donors for the first quarter of the year. Many of these donors are very wealthy corporations that sometimes make the news. See how many Olympic corporate overlords you can match to the news they’ve made.
A. This corporate overlord is currently undergoing a “reinvention plan” that will close 225 of its stores and eliminate the jobs of the employees working in them. The compensation of the CEO whose idea this is has nearly doubled in the past three years and now stands at $12.4 million.
B. This corporate overlord benefitted from a state guarantee of bonds for costs associated with the construction of its new Boston headquarters. Its CEO, who is himself a co-chair of the Boston 2024 Innovation and Technology committee, made $36.6 million in 2014, tops in the state. The company’s shareholders voted against that high salary, but their vote is nonbinding and it is expected that the overlord will simply ignore it.
C. The stock price of this corporate overlord fell one percent to $4.57 in 2014, in part because it agreed to pay $60 million to settle a shareholder lawsuit that it had artificially inflated its revenue by overcharging clients. Its CEO made only $13.5 million in 2014, down from $15.5 million the previous year.
D. This corporate overlord was recently fined by federal regulators for unfairly charging customers for an “identity protection” service of questionable value that they may not have even received. It has discontinued the service and has spent $37.6 million refunding customers who paid for it.
E. This corporate overlord received a $22.5 million tax break from the state to maintain its headquarters in Boston. The CEO suite in its new home, which includes woven silk wallcoverings from the Netherlands and a personal exercise room (price tag $4.5 million), was the work of Suffolk Construction, whose CEO, John Fish, is Boston 2024’s top donor so far this year with a gift of somewhere between $1 million and $2.5 million.
1. Santander Bank
2. Vertex Pharmaceuticals
3. Liberty Mutual
4. Staples
5. State Street Corporation
(Cross-posted here.)
A: Staples
B: Vertex, but you forgot to mention that they have lost money consistently over the past few years and will try to make it up with their newest drug release which will cost a whopping $100,000 per year person. Don’t you understand, the execs need their retention bonuses or they might have to leave for another company to pilage, I mean, to manage.
C: State Street
D: Santander
E: Liberty Mutual
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It’s rather amazing the power the world gives these people, given just how often they fail, and fail hard.
Who can add additional facts about the overlords run amuck and how the corporations they head take advantage of us?
In some ways the government aids these corporations. In order to drive on public roads I’m required to buy insurance from companies like Liberty Mutual.
I think this a very well executed post. Bravo!
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