Insult to injury

A couple of days ago we posted the news that Ryland Group CEO R. Chad Dreier, one of the nation's highest paid executives, was retiring. What the Calabasas-based homebuilder didn't disclose at the time were the terms of his $27 million retirement package. He'll be getting a lump cash payment of $8.2 million on May 29, his last day as CEO, and $16.4 million six months later. He also will get a $900,000 salary for 2009, an undetermined 2009 bonus and a $2 million cash payment. (Here's the SEC filing.) He and his wife also keep the company's executive health plan for 15 years. Ryland notes in the filing that by stepping down now, Dreier "is giving up significant compensation and other benefits that otherwise would be payable to him, including significant amounts that would be payable in the event he remained in the employment of the Company." From a PR standpoint, the timing on this thing couldn't have been much worse (see previous post), but Dreier has been making crazy amounts of money for some time. Over a five-year period, according to the WSJ, he has received $181 million. He tells the Journal that his compensation was "fair and square," and he's sort of right. His contract goes all the way back to 2002 and was amended three years later by the board. Still and all, a $27 million retirement package? What possible justification is there to receive so much money?