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LMC executives receive high pay, stock options

Interim CEO slated to make $500K over five months; president gets $150K raise

LORDSTOWN — Electric truck startup Lordstown Motors Corp., which gave its founder and former CEO a $750,000 severance when he resigned last week, has agreed to pay his temporary replacement $500,000 over the next five months.

The amount due to interim CEO Angela Strand is contained in a regulatory filing Thursday that also spells out employment terms for the struggling company’s new chief operating officer, Jane Ritson-Parsons, and contains an amended employment agreement with a raise for President Rich Schmidt.

Strand, lead independent board director, and Ritson-Parsons were named to the posts June 14, the same day the company announced the departures of ex-CEO Steve Burns and chief financial officer, Julio Rodriguez, who was given a severance of $200,000.

The filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission show Ritson-Parsons, the company’s former chief brand officer, will be paid a base salary of $400,000 per year and receive a one-time $100,000 lump sum signing bonus.

Schmidt will be paid $400,000 per year, up from $250,000 per year, according to a past employment agreement filed with the SEC in October.

Strand also will receive 50,000 shares of the company that vest 60 days after her term expires. Ritson-Parsons will receive 350,000 shares of company stock that will vest first, second and third anniversaries of her employment.

Schmidt will receive 500,000 performance-based stock options, the agreement states.

Also in the executive shakeup, the company brought on Becky Roof, managing director of AlixPartners LLP, a global consulting firm.

Roof, who has been interim CFO at Eastman Kodak, Hudson’s Bay Company, Saks Fifth Avenue and Aceto Corp., a publicly traded generic pharma and specialty chemical company, will be paid $1,200 per hour, according to a separate SEC filing.

Lordstown Motors stock fell 1.8 percent in trading Thursday to close at $10.98 per share. It’s down 46 percent so far in 2021, a year the company has found itself the subject of a scathing short-sellers report, multiple lawsuits, an SEC investigation and questions over whether it can stay in business. The company also failed to pay its first-half 2020 property taxes on time.

Earlier this week, it faced more scrutiny with the news several executives, including Schmidt, sold millions in stock weeks before announcing financial results in March.

The company addressed the matter June 14 in a report by a special committee formed to address accusations made in the short-sellers report released March 12.

It determined the transactions, made by five executives, “were made for reasons unrelated to the performance of the company or viability of the Endurance,” the battery-powered truck the company expects to launch limited production of in September.

Also last week, the company found itself walking back statements it had firm, binding orders, and Tuesday, news came out its partnership with Camping World to access the recreational vehicle retailer’s nationwide service network for repairs and service apparently is kaput.

Today is the end of Lordstown Week for the company, a weeklong chance for investors, auto analysts, potential customers and the media to engage company executives, tour the sprawling plant and get a small window into how the company is preparing to start production the Endurance.

It’s an effort to restore investor confidence in the company, which earlier this month stated it needed more money to launch commercial scale production of the truck and disclosed its doubt to remain a “going concern,” an accounting term that means a company has the financial wherewithal to meet its obligations.

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