Hewlett-Packard and Compaq offer €613m employee bonuses
Hewlett-Packard and Compaq plan to award €613m in bonuses to key employees as an incentive to stay on if their merger goes through.
Hewlett-Packard would pay €29m to 10 top executives and €295m to about 6,000 selected employees over two years.
Compaq says it will pay €19.5m to seven top executives and €212m to an undisclosed number of employees over two years.
The company will also donate €10.4m to charity in the names of its outside directors.
Both companies disclosed in their original prospectus in November last year that HP chief executive Carly Fiorina had turned down a merger-related bonus package that would have been worth €6.9m, and that Compaq chief executive Michael Capellas forfeited a €12.5m plan.
The companies said the chief executives wanted to avoid the appearance of conflicts of interest as they urge on the deal's completion.
The retention bonuses are designed to keep important employees around during the difficult integration of the massive technology companies.
HP has 86,000 workers; Compaq has 66,500. At least 15,000 layoffs are expected if the deal does take place.
