"Good Lord!" says the headline in a British newspaper, praising Lord Wolfson, business leader and peer of the realm, for having been uncommonly generous.
Wolfson, CEO of Next, the U.K.'s biggest department store chain, gave his entire annual bonus--$3.6 million—to his employees.
But in the U.S. no CEO of a public company, so far as we could find, has recently given his bonus back to his employees. That's not to say some CEOs haven't foregone what's due them. Just last week a judge nixed a $20 million severance deal for Tom Horton, CEO of American Airlines.
Nor has any CEO in the U.K, other than Wolfson, according to Alistair Mackinnon-Munson, a spokesperson for Next. "It's the first time that any chief executive has ever done anything like this," he confirms. "All our staff of 19,400 will share in it as a cash bonus. It works out to about 1 percent of their basic salary."
