Florida Plunder & Loot

Ok what is wrong with this picture?

Here is company or to be more accurate group of companies that is one of the more generous South Florida companies when it comes to lavishing perks on its execs. In what Miami Herald calls POURING ON THE PERKS its Chairman and CEO received $153,537 worth last year, up from $112,695 in 2006. The figures include membership dues for a country club and luncheon club, a company-leased vehicle (gas and maintenance included), a home security system, financial planning and legal services, an annual physical, and airline memberships, to name only some. The total Compensation the CEO received was $11.82 mil

And why not the company during the 1st quarter of 2008 reported a net income of $249 million and expects to make a very huge profit this year. Fortune magazine named this company No. 1 for the second year in a row in its Category and featured the company in the list of “America’s Most Admired Companies.” In 2007, total shareholder return on the company stock was 28 percent, compared to 19 percent average return on stocks of other companies in the same sector.

The company is planning $16 billion to $20 billion of renewable investments in the 2007-2012 period.

These new investments include:

– Energy efficiency programs.
– New renewable energy projects that the company is proposing.
– Proposed additional gas generation projects, including the modernization of two older plants to reduce emissions and increase fuel efficiency.
– Expanded capacity at its existing nuclear plants.
– And, long-term initiatives to make its electrical system more resilient to storms.

“These investments will be focused on improving efficiency and reducing our fuel costs as well as further improving our clean environmental profile,” the CEO told shareholders at the company’s annual meeting in May. 

Yet earlier this week the company announced that it’ll be increasing the price of its product by about 16% due to increased fuel costs!

The company is Florida Power & Light (FPL) and the CEO is Lewis Hay III. FPL Group has annual revenues of over $15 billion, with a growing presence in 27 states. It serves 4.5 million customer accounts in Florida.

The company wants us to believe that they have no option but to pass along the increase in the cost of gas and oil, both of which are used to generate electricity to its consumers!

I am no financial expert or a management guru but I just like the other 4.5 million FPL customers in Florida and everybody else in the US of A who feel the pinch of higher fuel costs and have made adjustments to the household budget. Here are some things that I have done I have dropped my membership to the country club and luncheon club, lowered gas and maintenance on my noncompany-leased vehicle by relying more on public transportation, gave a pink slip to my financial planner, I have made peace with my neighbors thus reducing the need for legal services, I now get my annual physical from an in-network physician hence it is covered by my health insurance, although I miss my high-end doctor in LA , and last but not the least I have dropped my Admiral’s Club membership, I now wait with the common folks at the airport!

If I can do all this cannot a team that runs such a successful company find cost cutting measures instead of just passing on the cost to its consumers? There is something wrong with the picture here!

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