Golden parachute lands Merrill exec in $37-million pad

Let’s all be thankful that someone can still afford to buy a home in this credit crunch.

From today's New York Post:

Look what taxpayers' Wall Street rescue helped buy one former honcho!

Peter Kraus -- a former top executive at Merrill Lynch who received a $25-million golden parachute after only three months' work -- has landed himself a $37-million Park Avenue pad.

Kraus, 55, doled out the staggering sum for the five-bedroom co-op at 720 Park Ave. near East 70th Street after taking $25 million from Merrill after the company was sold to Bank of America in September.

Chalk it up to brilliant negotiation skills, and being in the right place at the right time: The Post says that Merrill hired Kraus as an executive vice president in summer, and agreed to a $50-million total pay package for him -- including the customary giant golden parachute.

"Although he did not officially start work until September, Kraus hit the jackpot after just a couple of days, when Merrill CEO John Thain sold the company to Bank of America," the Post notes. "The sale automatically triggered the $25 million payout under Kraus' contract. He left Merrill this month."

His parachute is equivalent to 0.1% of the $25 billion cash infusion that Bank of America and Merrill together got under the government’s bailout plan for the financial system.

Kraus now is CEO of money manager AllianceBernstein.

-- Tom Petruno

Comments

[Andres Sanchez]

When will the people get of their ass and call their leaders and demand that all future payouts be stopped until the banks are forced to account for their actions.

We never seem to learn from the past. Back in the 90's when bailouts occurred for the banks, they stopped lending then as they have now yet the economy found a way back. I bet if we had let company's fail the economy would be rebounding faster then the slow death we are seeing now.

New leadership will not fix anything, most of the problems started when the Dem's where in office but the Rep's are just as much to blame for seating on their asses and doing nothing but trying to scare us into giving up our freedoms.

I believe it is time to hit the reset button and start over.

I love you Christie, LNH

[Joseph The Real Estate Guy]

Executives who made millions out of this Financial Mess should return the money! Plain and Simple!

[coakl]

Check to see if you have any mutual funds managed by AllianceBernstein (quite a few Vanguard funds are run by this advisor). Sell them.

With a greedy, corrupt exec running AllianceBernstein, you're certainly not going to get good results on any investments run by this firm. Remember: crap flows downhill.

[Dave Manhardt]

Accountability is the key for all these CEO pay outs.
Corruption, way to much of it. We need to clean it up.

[Mike R]

Rhode Island is currently re-considering using AB as their 529 Plan manager given Kraus' move to CEO there .... let's hope this reflects a change in how RI does business and serves as a guide to instituional investors everywhere.

[Mike Young]

I must be in the wrong business!

Mike

[Tom Lowe]

What goes around, comes around and white collar criminals like Peter Kraus will have everything they own taken away and then some for these heinous acts of outright theft. For every ill-gotten smile that breaks on the face of Peter Kraus, he has an hour of total screaming agony awaiting him and his foul ilk at the hands of a justifiably angry world.

[Charles Fockaert]

Acts like this by criminals like Kraus is what a noose is for.

[Nick]

Well on the bright side, it's only 0.1% of the money given to Merrill under the bailout...

[NJrealist]

Blah, blah...complain all you can...how about doing something about it...America - WE THE PEOPLE - it is OUR responsibility to keep the ELECTED SERVANTS in line with the law. Join a campaign, activist group, run for local office - stop complaining, please. If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

[JJ]

Althought, Kraus's golden parachnte was totally outrages John Thain should be the one to be blame as he was the one that sold ML. Kraus as reported was extremely fortunate to be at the right place and time! I wonder why he is being accused as a criminal? I would think that he had to leave his previous employer to commit to the ML posting..............