How it pays to get fired

Just ask Viacom ex-CEO Tom Freston, who is walking away with $84.8 million. In addition to severance, which covers around $60 million of that, there's salary, deferred compensation and various target bonuses. It all seems straight-forward enough - well, as much as these crazy numbers can be - until the really goofy part pops up in the filing. As part of his employment agreement, Freston becomes a Viacom adviser for three years - at a fee of $1 million a year. For all that, he just needs to devote five days a month to the job (not that he'll actually be asked to do anything). Oh, and he still gets medical coverage through mid-2009. "They may very well have said, `We don't want him mad at us,''' executive recruiter John Challenger told Bloomberg News.



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Mark Lacter
Mark Lacter created the LA Biz Observed blog in 2006. He posted until the day before his death on Nov. 13, 2013.
 
Mark Lacter, business writer and editor was 59
The multi-talented Mark Lacter
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