Rumor is profits will be obscene this quarter. So why aren’t employees being made whole?
14 replies (most recent on top)
Management believes employees are made whole on the 1st and 15th of every month.
I do think profits will be good for the next few years and that will allow EM to repair the balance sheet, but this is still a dying company in a dying industry. Get out while you can with a booming economy… if you’re under 45 and sticking around, best of luck.
True. Chevron $112, today $107. Cumulative dividend $32/share.
Last time (~ Oct 2014) crude hit $80/bbl, EM stock at ~$92/share. Today, $61/share. Along the way, ~$22/share cumulative dividend has been given to shareholders. Another ~$9/share to go to breakeven. Laughing my head off.
Dividend hike seems to be in the book - shareholders first. LOL
The employees of this company will never be “made whole”, either financially or in terms of job security. The “leaders” in Dallas always have considered themselves to be a superior race compared to the ordinary workers, but now this has reached absurd levels. Dallas believes that now they walk on water, that they’ve discovered the secret that has eluded all other oil companies: replace experienced workers with new hires and workers in low cost countries, systematically destroy any trace of employee morale, have a company of contractors and still keep the company afloat and get their RSUs, profit sharing and bonuses. Eventually the company will tank and be bought, and we all be out of jobs, except that some of “us” will have tens of millions in their pockets.
@1wfd+1di1MP2N
DW and the MC have decided to pay the dividend by any means because otherwise the share price would have collapsed from $30 to low single digits and they would have been collectively out of jobs. The latter is still the best possible outcome for EM, but will now have to wait some time, while EM will continue to crawl at the bottom of the pack.
A lot of the executives who gave up their salary at other companies was very much a publicity stunt. Most traded in cash compensation for stock compensation, and got publicity for being a good person which was BS because their compensation actually increased. And I’m not defending paying the dividend, but even if you cut the dividend completely, less than $30/barrel will still send you broke. Maybe it would take an extra quarter or two, but it would happen without borrowing. Borrowing was still going to be needed, and so paying it off would still be needed. One thing I will say is, if all investors really didn’t support the dividend the MC wouldn’t have done it. When fighting AE1, the last thing they would have done is actively pi---d off big shareholders like blackrock. So if a majority of shareholders wanted the dividend, they did do what the owners of the company wanted. For better or for worse.
@1ghp+1di1MP2N The only response I would have to your long paragraph is that as a business taking on debt by borrowing money to pay dividends also doesn't make a business sense. Investors are well aware of investment risks. However, as we all know the executive compensation is stock heavy so this approach is beneficial to them to support their greed. Before layoffs, did one executive offered to temporarily lower their salary in support of lowering opex, just name me once. A lot of CEOs at other companies did this last year, but the underpaid CEO of XOM who makes $30+ millions in his compensation.
Depends on what you define as 'obscene'.
This quarter barely rates as 'blue' or 'tawdry' according to investors.
@1ghp+1di1MP2N Wrong. Company was borrowing to pay the dividend. You can spin however you want.
Grandma, Grandpa, and Executives first, then if anything left for employees. How dare you ask this question, Mr. Woods may say! Be happy that you have pension and 401k.
Paying down the company debt is, if you think about it, part of giving it back. When we were losing money during the pandemic, and the price was literally negative one day, the company was borrowing money to keep paying us. Sure we took a small hit individually, but they could have not borrowed money and paid you nothing or gone out of business if you’d prefer? Running high debt runs the risk of going out of business in the long run. That means no salaries, no pension payments. So paying down debt is crucial. We have a schedule for raises and we haven’t gotten there yet. So let’s just wait a minute and see if 2022 compensation is going to increase. If we pay down debt and have plenty left and just hold it instead of giving raises, then yea let’s get angry. But you have to balance out a great quarter with a horrible year last year.
Profits are passed on to shareholders and executives (who are also big shareholders) first. We will need several more obscene quarters for employees to start seeing increased benefits.
It's only 6.49B