Good for Mayo Shattuck for giving up millions in compensation as Baltimore Gas and Electric customers face a 72 percent pop in electric bills this summer. He can read the tea leaves.
Now if only BGE parent Constellation Energy would make a similar gesture - by contributing to genuine rate relief - we could forget kilowatts for a while and read about the new Justin Timberlake movie instead.
Shattuck, who is chairman and chief executive officer of Constellation, has apparently taken lessons at the William L. Jews school of public embarrassment and merger tactics.
Jews is boss of CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, Maryland's biggest health insurer.
While agreeing to sell CareFirst to WellPoint Health Networks a few years ago, he almost single-handedly snuffed his own deal by negotiating a personal payout of up to $39 million, much of which was triggered by the merger.
Anger over the swag, amplified by the fact that CareFirst is a nonprofit, all but guaranteed then-Insurance Commissioner Steve Larsen's decision to block the transaction.
Now something like the CareFirst thriller is back on the marquee, thanks to Constellation/BGE's pending merger with Florida's FPL Group, worries about future control of BGE and millions in compensation being pocketed by executives.
(Unlike CareFirst, Baltimore Gas and Electric is for-profit. But as a historically regulated utility BGE is similar to CareFirst by being a quasi-public asset that is key to the regional economy.)
Soaring electric rates, which are unrelated to the merger, have nevertheless stoked the discontent even further. Now Shattuck apparently has been worried that his pay package jeopardizes the FPL marriage, even though regulators have far less control over that deal than Larsen did with CareFirst.
In recent days, Shattuck has agreed to forgo as much as $25 million in cash that he might have gotten in the merger and subsequent departure from the company.
First, Shattuck recently told Constellation to donate to his family charity what the company estimates as between $5 million and $10 million in long-term incentive pay and restricted stock, which would have been accelerated and, in the case of the stock, converted to cash upon the merger.
Then, on Friday, he agreed to give up between $5 million and $15 million in potential, post-merger cash severance, "taking into account our mutual interest in completing the proposed merger," according to a letter he signed and gave Constellation.
