In a jaw-dropping move, the CEO of a Louisiana family company is giving his employees a total of $240 million in bonuses.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the feat was achieved by Graham Walker, the outgoing CEO of electrical equipment enclosures manufacturer Fibrebond.
Before agreeing to sell the company to a larger one, Eaton, for $1.7 billion, Walker ensured that 15 percent of the proceeds from the sale would go to the company’s 540 full-time employees.
Each person will reportedly receive an average bonus of $443,000 to be paid out over the next five years if they stay with the company throughout that time. Long-time employees will earn even more.
In an interview with Journal, Walker said his motivation for the bonuses was to reward the people who worked for the company and stuck with it when times were tough.
“I hope I’m 80 years old and get an email about how it’s impacted someone,” he said.
A few co-workers spoke to the Journal about the impact of the bonuses and how the money will change their lives.
“Before, we were going paycheck to paycheck,” said longtime employee Lesia Key. “I can live now; I’m grateful.”
“It was surreal, it was like telling people they won the lottery. There was absolute shock,” said Hector Moreno, a company executive who distributed the bonuses to employees. “They said, ‘What’s the catch?’”
Fibrebond was founded by Graham’s father, Claud Walker, in 1982. Throughout its nearly 50-year history, it had its share of difficult times, including a devastating fire in 1998 and declining customers at the start of the internet age.
The company’s luck turned around soon after Graham Walker and his brother assumed leadership of the company in the 2000s. The biggest move happened in 2020 when Fibrebond invested $150 million to build infrastructure for data centers, which led to sales growing nearly 400 percent in the years since.
Fibrebond announced its sale to Eaton on April 1. Walker, who has handled the company in the wake of the sale, will exit on Dec. 31.