Why fly United when you can fly Worldcom
Wouldn't it be great to have an arrangment like this one just to serve as a director of a large company, as detailed in this New York Times story (registration required). Kellett, who made his millions from the business of nurshing homes, yep, got paid too for serving on the board and attending board meetings. Ah, the corporate good life coming to an end.
A longtime WorldCom director has resigned and agreed to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for benefits he received in the years before the company collapsed into bankruptcy.
The resignation of the director, Stiles A. Kellett Jr., came Sunday night after months of criticism of a deal he struck with WorldCom while it was still a star of the telecommunications industry. The deal permitted Mr. Kellett to rent a company airplane for $1 a month and a $400 fee.
Richard C. Breeden, the former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission who was appointed by the bankruptcy court as a monitor for WorldCom, has attacked the deal as improper, saying in a memorandum to the court that the arrangement saved Mr. Kellett at least $1.4 million. Mr. Breeden called for Mr. Kellett's ouster in the memo and in communications to the board.