AIG Exec, Leaving Due To Pay Caps, To Get $3.8 Mill Severance
Anastasia Kelly, AIG's vice chair, is quitting because of the $500,000 pay cap. She talked with Rep. Dennsi Kucinich at a May 2009 hearing as then AIG CEO Edward Liddy watched. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images hide caption
Anastasia Kelly, AIG's vice chair, is quitting because of the $500,000 pay cap. She talked with Rep. Dennsi Kucinich at a May 2009 hearing as then AIG CEO Edward Liddy watched.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesWhen it became clear that the Obama Administration meant business in terms of slapping pay caps on top execs at financial institutions whose very survival was due to massive taxpayer help, chief executives at financial institutions warned that they would have trouble either attracting or keeping their talent.
They weren't kidding in the case of Anastasia Kelly at AIG. The AIG vice chair has informed her employer that she's out of there because of the pay caps.
As NPR's Ted Robbins reported for the network's newscast:
Once the world's largest insurer, AIG has gotten $182 billion from the government to keep it afloat. Anastasia Kelly was AIG's vice-chair for a number of departments -- including legal, human resources, and corporate communications.
Her base pay was capped at $500,000-a-year by Kenneth Feinberg, the man President Obama appointed to monitor pay at companies which received taxpayer funds...
The company says she is leaving for what it calls "good reason", then states that reason as the pay cap. Kelly will get a reported $3.8-million severance package. AIG also announced a second, lower-ranking officer is leaving the company to pursue other opportunities.
Several top AIG executives, Kelly among them, had threatened earlier in December to quit because of the pay caps. Some changed their minds, according to The Wall Street Journal. Kelly didn't.