The Detroit Free Press reports that Kmart has gone to court to invalidate a $19.6 million severance claim by its former CEO, Charles Conaway, who ran the company from 2000 to 2002.
The money that Conaway is seeking includes about $4 million in cash, forgiveness of a $5-million loan, more than $5 million in bonuses that he says he is owed, $4 million in stock, and almost another $4 million to reimburse him for taxes he had to pay on the forgiven loan.
The money that Conaway is seeking includes about $4 million in cash, forgiveness of a $5-million loan, more than $5 million in bonuses that he says he is owed, $4 million in stock, and almost another $4 million to reimburse him for taxes he had to pay on the forgiven loan.
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Heaven knows what Conaway would have believed Kmart owed him if he hadn't actually participated in the act of driving the retailer into bankruptcy.
Apparently, Conaway is looking to build up the old cash reserves. Just last week, he sold his 29-room, 15,000 sq. ft. Detroit area mansion to rapper Eminem for almost $4.8 million. (One has to wonder what kind of shape the mansion was in, especially if it was maintained in the same fashion as most Kmart stores…)
Of course, it isn’t just Conaway who is facing off with Kmart's current management over benefits.
In one of the more bizarre filings we've ever read, Kathleen Antonini , the wife of former Kmart chairman and chief executive Joseph Antonini, is fighting Kmart's attempt to invalidate a $1.1 million claim against the company.
According to the Free Press, Kathleen Antonini maintains that "under the terms of her husband's company pension, she is entitled to half his $31,275 monthly benefit for the balance of her life after his death. The court filing, citing actuarial tables, says Kathleen Antonini, 53, could expect to outlive her 61-year-old husband by 73 months.
Which certainly ought to warm her husband's heart on those chilly Detroit evenings…
