Top Merrill officers won't get bonuses

In a rare indication that there may actually be a correlation between losing massive amounts of money and not receiving a bonus, Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) president Gregory Fleming and other top officials at the company will not receive bonuses for 2007, a year marked by a precipitous decline in the value of the company's stock resulting from massive losses on subprime loans.

But, The Wall Street Journal reported [subscription required], "few people are going home empty-handed. In addition to their base salaries, $350,000 each for Mr. Fleming and Robert McCann, president of Merrill's global wealth-management business, the New York financial-services firm said it will grant" 1.2 million and 971,346 "retention options" respectively.

I question the reasoning behind the retention payments. If Mr. Fleming and company are the kind of people who would skip town in the wake of huge losses, does Merrill really want them? I'm not so sure.

Furthermore, these executives received bonuses based on the company's performance in the past year -- performance that was buoyed by gains from the debt that is now being written down. Perhaps they should have to give back those bonuses.

It's a nice gesture that Fleming won't be receiving a bonus, but executive compensation at the company -- especially the huge package former CEO Stan O'Neal left with -- is still a joke.