We recently learned that Michael Jeffries, the CEO of Abercrombie, would receive $4 million in exchange for limiting his yearly personal use of the company’s private jet to $200,000 worth of travel. However, we didn’t know how much Jeffries cost the company on personal travel last year … until this very lucky and exciting morning! Turns out it was $640,000 plus $170,000 to cover taxes related to that personal travel. (This is still less than the $1.1 million he used for personal travel in 2008.) That $810,000 sum is included in the total value of Jeffries’s compensation for 2009 — a dismal year for so many, Jeffries’s company included. But he walked away with a pay package valued at $36.3 million, up from $23.2 million the year before.
While Abercrombie’s sales fell 16 percent for that year and net income fell $254,000, the CEO got a salary of $1.5 million and $33.3 million in options rewards to fully vest by January 2014, when his contract runs out.
The big equity component “strongly aligns” Mr. Jeffries’s interests with those of Abercrombie & Fitch shareholders, the spokesman said.
Jeffries didn’t get a cash bonus because operating goals weren’t met in either the spring or fall periods. However, he got about $120,000 for personal security, which, in light of these numbers and the nation’s collective bitterness, was probably put to good use.