Monday, July 12, 2010

Urgent: GCI's H.R. consultant Hewitt sold for $5B

Gannett Blog readers have frequently given a thumbs down to Hewitt Associates over what employees called a slow-footed response to questions about health insurance and pension plan payouts, especially for those laid off. Today, insurance brokerage giant Aon said it's buying Hewitt for $4.9 billion.

But don't necessarily expect big changes at Hewitt. Under terms of the deal, Hewitt Chairman and CEO Russ Fradin will become chair and chief executive of what will be called Aon Hewitt, showing his team will clearly be in charge of the combined companies.

Gannett has given Hewitt big bucks for advice to the board of directors on how much to pay CEO Craig Dubow and other members of his management team, as well as for managing the employee pension and health insurance plans, public documents show.

Last year, the most recent annual shareholder's proxy report says, "management retained consultant Hewitt Associates from time to time to provide various executive compensation services. In early 2010, Hewitt spun off part of its executive compensation practice into an independent entity, Meridian Compensation Partners LLC. Beginning in early 2010, management retained Meridian Compensation Partners LLC as its executive compensation consultant."

In 2008, the most recent year I've found, Gannett paid Hewitt $16.1 million in consulting fees, according to GCI's annual report to the the U.S. Labor Department for its medical care and group life insurance programs. That was more than any other consultant, the document shows.

Earlier: Hewitt gets how much to supersize Dubow's pay?
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3 comments:

  1. Anonymous7/12/2010 8:15 PM

    Gannett's HR out sourcer is worth almost twice what Gannett is worth. Nice.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous7/13/2010 8:51 AM

    You said millions, can you be more specific? If, for instance, their consulting fees went from $4,000,000 to $10,000,000 at a time when Dubow's salary went up that would be a real story. Details.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jim Hopkins7/13/2010 10:04 AM

    8:51 am: My original phrasing in this proxy was confusing; I've now tweaked it.

    The proxy report does not say how much Gannett paid Hewitt for advice on executive compensation. On the other hand, we know from the U.S. Labor Department report that Hewitt got paid the $16.1 million for consulting on the medical and insurance plans.

    I'm sorry for any confusion I may have caused.

    ReplyDelete

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