Mark Hurd's Excesses Were in Plain Sight

PALO ALTO, Calif. (TheStreet) -- Almost one year ago, I wrote here that former Hewlett-Packard(HPQ) CEO Mark Hurd was the emperor with no clothes. Most on Wall Street have revered Hurd as the consummate guy who would execute and meet Wall Street's expectations. He sounded good -- always in control -- and he certainly seemed much more together than his predecessor, Carly Fiorina.

In my article, I laid out the case for why Hurd was not as dazzling a CEO as many thought and also why he was a risky asset for Hewlett-Packard moving forward.

Although most observers seemed to agree that Hurd did a great job turning around Hewlett-Packard, I pointed out that Hurd's magic really ran out after his first two and a half years on the job. In those early years, HP's stock went up 137%. Over the last two and a half years, however, H-P's shares are down 20%. Although that performance beats the S&P 500, it badly trails rival IBM(IBM), where shares are up 20% over the same period.

The media kept showering Hurd with the "halo effect" reputation of being a turnaround genius long after his actual performance had stopped keeping up with what he accomplished at the start of his tenure with the company.

There are lots of good CEOs who suddenly lose their touch. What alarmed me about Hurd last year was the piggish behavior he and his executive team were exhibiting at the expense of H-P shareholders.

What was worse, they were gorging at the trough of lavish compensation and excess perks at the same time that they were hypocritically turning the screws on H-P employees (who remained after a series of layoffs) to accept pay cuts and reduced benefits.

HP's Securities and Exchange Commission filings of the past few years have -- in plain sight of investors and journalists -- detailed this excess:

• Mark Hurd's total compensation for 2008 (when the global economic crisis reached its nadir) was $43 million, making him the fourth-highest-paid CEO that year, even though H-P's shares lost 29% that year.
• CIO Randy Mott's total compensation jumped 400% that year to $28 million.
• Imaging executive vice president Vyomesh (VJ) Joshi's total compensation increased 83% in 2008 to $22 million.
• Personal Systems EVP Todd Bradley's total compensation went up 263% that year to $21 million.
• Technology Solutions' EVP Ann Livermore's compensation went up 31% that year to $21 million.
• Now-interim CEO Cathie Lesjak got a 49% bump in total compensation in 2008 to $6 million.
• This management team mandated that year that all Hewlett-Packard staffers would take a 5% pay cut for the year, and they boasted that they -- as executives -- would stand shoulder to shoulder with the staff by taking 10% pay cuts. They forgot to say that the executive cuts would be only on base salary and that they would more than make up for that on options, restricted stock units and other bonus goodies.
• In 2008, H-P shareholders paid $7,472 for travel expenses for Mark Hurd's family to accompany him on business meetings. They paid $256,000 for Mark Hurd's personal security detail that year. And each executive was able to use $18,000 worth of financial advice that year on the shareholders' dime.
• Where it gets really interesting is that shareholders paid $136,000 for Mark Hurd's personal use of the H-P private plane fleet in 2008. Furthermore, H-P "grosses up" this taxable benefit, so that Hurd -- the guy who made $43 million in 2008 alone -- didn't have to pay any taxes for that private aircraft use. The filings also show that Hurd could take his spouse on the H-P aircraft whenever it was "requested by H-P" and that she got "grossed up" for that too.
• Michelle Leder of Footnoted also first reported in 2008 that Hurd had been "grossed up" $79,814 for taxes he had to pay as a benefit on meals with his family that were paid for by HP. Leder estimated that, in order to be "grossed up" by such a high amount, Hurd would have had total restaurant bills paid for by HP shareholders of more than $243,000.

Now, we find out that H-P's board uncovered a pattern where Mark Hurd inflated his personal expenses that involved a series of trips involving him and a female contractor, who worked for the company between fall of 2007 and fall of 2009.

Although I cheer anytime I see a corporate board wake up from a deep slumber and take action where it suspects a violation of ethics, I have to emphasize that this is -- by and large -- the same board of directors that approved all of the egregious compensation and perks laid out above. And those are only the ones relevant for 2008.