Outcry over Belgian banker's golden handshake (with update - see end)

Let me put a couple of questions to you. Am I missing something? And just out of interest, what do you think of this?

Monday into Tuesday there were all night negotiations in Belgium to stop the Belgian-French bank Dexia from going belly up with an injection of cash. You might remember that the day before another Belgian bank, Fortis was partially nationalised.

Anyway back to the bailing out of Dexia. The French government provided around €1 billion and he French state-controlled Caisse des dépôts coughed up another €2 billion with the government of Luxembourg chipping in €375 million.

The Belgian state for its part stumped up €3 billion

The grand total - give or take the odd centime - €6.4 billion.

Well guess what.

From reports in the French and Belgian media on Wednesday, Axel Miller - the chief executive of Dexia and by all accounts one of the guys who should take the blame for the company getting itself into such a mess is in the first place, is to get rather a tidy little golden handshake before moving on to pastures new.

The not insubstantial amount of €3.73 million according to the national French daily Le Figaro.

And it's already creating quite a stir within the French government, with the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy reported to be hopping mad about a practice he is eager to see ended, and the spokesman for the government, Luc Chatel, saying what is probably going to be heard from quite a few politicians over the next couple of days.

"I think that at a time when the whole financial system is experiencing the kind of difficulties we all know about - and notably Dexia has faced such problems - this type of practice is particularly shocking in the eyes of the French," he is quoted as saying.


Miller himself confirmed on Tuesday evening on Belgian national television that he was against the idea of golden handshakes (parachutes) when they were unmerited. But in his case it was "different."

"As far as my situation is concerned the practice is not unmerited, as nobody has told me it's unmerited," he said.

Am I missing something?


Update Friday October 3, 2008

After coming under pressure from the French government, which had threatened to withdraw its financing from the bailout, Miller finally announced that he was abandoning his claim to the golden handshake.