Who wouldn’t like a $5.5 million severance package?
It’s what Timothy L. Dove got as he retired immediately last week as chief executive at Pioneer Natural Resources Co. in Irving, Texas. He held the job slightly more than two years and was replaced by the company’s founding CEO and board chairman, Scott Sheffield.
Pioneer made a regulatory filing in which it stated it treated Dove’s departure as a “termination without case” which entitled him to a payout of three times his base salary, which totaled $3.5 million. It also included a 2018 cash bonus of more than $1.8 million and other cash benefits worth $145,000.
The company also is fulling vesting his equity awards for 2017 and 2018 which means millions of dollars in additional pay for him.
Dove spent 24 years with Pioneer and his severance package also includes a three-year confidentiality clause.
As the Dallas Morning News reported, Dove’s abrupt departure came a week after he told Wall Street that Pioneer planned to slow production growth and spending this year, despite record U.S. output. He also announced a double-digit cut in capital spending, drawing criticism from analysts about whether Pioneer could hit its million-barrels-per-day production target. Pioneer is one of biggest players in the Midland area of the Permian Basin.