Chuck Prince to get $42M upon exit

NEW YORK (AP) -- Charles Prince is leaving Citigroup Inc. at the end of the year with approximately $42 million in stock awards, a bonus and other benefits, but the amount could fall if the embattled company's shares tumble even further.

Prince already owns 1.61 million Citigroup shares currently worth around $53 million.

Citigroup (Charts, Fortune 500) said in a regulatory filing late Thursday that it is giving Prince, who announced his retirement as CEO late Sunday, $29.5 million in stock awards, options and pension.

In addition to that sum, Prince is entitled to an end-of-the-year incentive bonus based on the stock's performance at the end of 2007. Currently, that bonus is valued at about $12 million. Citigroup's stock has sunk 41 percent so far this year, and shares fell 51 cents to close Thursday at $32.90.

Meanwhile, he will receive salary until the end of the year, and is entitled to an office, an administrative assistant, and a car and driver for five years or until he finds other employment, Citigroup said in Thursday's filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Prince, whose 2006 compensation was about $25 million, is leaving the nation's largest bank with billions of dollars of risky debt on its books.

In the third quarter, Citigroup took a hit of more than $6 billion in asset markdowns and other credit-related losses, which led to a 57 percent drop in profit. Late Sunday, the bank estimated it would take additional losses of $8 billion to $11 billion in the fourth quarter.

The sum Prince is pocketing may look hefty to the average worker on Main Street, but on Wall Street, the payout is on the modest side.

Merrill Lynch & Co.'s (Charts, Fortune 500) departing chief executive, Stan O'Neal, is leaving with $161.5 million in stock, options and retirement benefits, even after leaving the brokerage with its biggest ever quarterly loss in the third quarter.

O'Neal, 56, had been the second-highest paid Wall Street CEO, with 2006 pay of approximately $48 million. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (Charts, Fortune 500) CEO Lloyd C. Blankfein was the top-paid on Wall Street, earning $54.3 million in 2006.

A big reason shareholders were so unhappy with Citigroup under Prince's leadership was because shares have been lagging the bank's peers for years. Citigroup's sagging stock ended up dampening Prince's payout; in the week before Prince's resignation, the stock fell nearly 12 percent.

"It looks like he lost $14 million in the last week," said David Schmidt, a consultant with executive compensation firm James F. Reda & Associates LLC.