Celebrity CEOs and Their Centralized Money

MSN Money Central. The name says it all, beginning with the MS for Microsoft, which brings us immediately to Bill Gates, who has very near seven dollars in his pocket to offer to each and every person on this planet. For those who don't keep a close watch on the “POPClock Projection,” that number is currently at 6,623,745,625 people, multiplied by seven, which is simply more than any writer, no matter how successful they become, could possibly process! Well, over at Microsoft News Money Central, a person can learn a lot about the jet-setting, supra-celebrity life of the typical American big business CEO. Indeed, many a CEO touts a lifestyle that is certainly and quite literally high-flyin', far above and beyond that of man A-list celebrities. As Money Central reports, “A surprising number of chief executives love to own planes, or in one case, even a small aircraft company. It's a sideline that's easier when shareholders help foot the bill.”

Planes aside, those are some very intriguing statements. Until recently, very few shareholders have been aware of how much of their investments were going not only to such by now commonplace luxuries as housemaids, dry cleaning, substantially sized homes and summer homes, cars, boats and the like, but also, syrupy sweet “loans”--that is, loans either without interest, or loans that get “forgiven” (e.g., written off as part of severance packages or gifts in exchange for favors and some bizarre gestures of cronyism)--and private jet fleets. Outstanding among cases too numerous to cite is when the Bristol, Pennsylvania-based Chief Executive of Jones Apparel Group (JNY) was advanced an $ 18 million dollar lone in order to purchase a new home in New York City. The loan was granted in the very months when shareholders saw the value of their stock cut in half. He did repay the loan; unlike many others. In 2000, Microsoft (no less than the very parent of MSN Money Central) lent two executives a sum total of $27 million. This is one of the great instances of loan “forgiveness” that just titillates the senses. The two employees made off with an average of $13.5 million apiece, transformed from loan into “severance package,” and we hope, they lived happily ever after.

But about those jets. Here this article had attempted to claim that the big-time CEO was definitely supra-celebrity. Well, that is definitely misleading. “Prince” or “royalty” are words that better characterize the flight patterns of these busy bees. Oracle (ORCL) CEO Larry Ellison owns his own aircraft company, which he conveniently leases to his company. That “service” cost his own peeps $1 million last year alone. And that's not quite the best example. Who wouldn't like to be the CEO of Nike, whose company picks up the maintenance for Mr. Philip Knight's plane? Well, but he does reimburse his company when he uses it for personal matters, to the tune of $150,000 last year alone! That may sound like a heaven-sent salary to most people, but for Mr. Nike, it was just his CEO “bus fare,” and fortunately for him, he has all of the Nike village shareholders to pay for the significant costs of storage, airport, and other related maintenance fees.

Oh, but there's so much juicy news to relish in this camp. How about the timeless topic of nepotism? Everyone knows that Hollywood is one big family tree, or at best a limited grove of trees that have extended, elaborate and nearly always interrelated branches. CEOs apparently are masters of the game of insider and familiar promotion. Somehow the following story is so appealing, even if it is not terribly extraordinary these days. The wife of board member and senior manager A. Kirk Lanterman of Carnival Cruise Lines (CCL) runs an extraordinarily wealthy travel company. Guess it's not hard when your agency gets to collect $2.1 million in commissions from none other than *drum roll* Carnival Cruise Lines. That's quite the cushy job. Same as for the husband of CEO of the pharmaceutical consulting firm Quintiles Transnational (QTRN, news, msgs), who gets paid $180,000 per year plus stock options to serve as a medical adviser on the conduct of clinical trials.

Whoever thought People Magazine has the best celebrity gossip was barking up the wrong tree. The life of the big time CEOs and their ever extending families is ever so much more entertaining than the story of the next child star who grows up to have some trouble staying sober.