Thread regarding ExxonMobil Corp. layoffs

Just to clarify on @whw+1aaLsino comment on item#1 with regards to impact to XOM exclusion from DOW Jones Index. It actually ‘support’ the stock price. Fund managers need to hold index stocks in their portfolio as the Funds tracked the Index movement. You will notice that when a company is removed from the Index, the stock price dropped as the Fund Managers will sell off their holdings as there is no reason to hold them anymore - the demand for the company stock drops. An inclusion will raise the stock price, on the other hand. It works on “demand and supply”.

So the fact the XOM is dropped from the index does harm to it’s stock price. As to why it is dropped, it could be that the Company’s performance does not truly represent the Sector anymore. Hope this clarification helps.

The biggest problem Tillerson left behind was Woods. At least Tillerson exude confidence, while Woods doesn’t know what the f— he’s doing, and he calls it winning. We are ExxonMobil is just so tone deaf and yet everyone is touting it in public but decrying it in private. Disgusting

#PIPf***kingWoods a scumbag that deserves to be PIPed.

Very accurate description of the current CEO performance. Let’s hope that going forward, it will get better with a change of Management.

While I’m not a big fan of the current CEO either, the corporation bought back over $207 BILLION of our own stock during the Tillerson years (publicly available info from annual reports), and we are now nearly $70 BILLION in debt with no cash reserves. He may be bad, but the last guy was even worse, and he left his successor to clean up the mess.

Sounds like the role model for every ExxonMobil manager I’ve ever known. “Accelerate faster than your last disaster”.

Bonus? For what

EM said it planned to reduce employee and contractor headcount by 14,000, or 15%, on a worldwide basis. Call it PiP, layoffs, fired or retired, it’s 14,000. Period. Through year-end 2022. For a company that had gotten too fat, the never before seen drop in oil price and demand in such a short period, and the imposed discipline to focus on fewer projects, this level of reduction is entirely reasonable, or perhaps even surprisingly low. Completely normal in this business.

Headcount dropped from 75k in 2019 to 72k in 2020. I expect headcount to be about 69k at end of 2021. That is NOT 15% ....it is 8% reduction.

How much is Darren Woods Worth?
Darren Woods net worth and salary: Darren Woods is an American businessman who has a net worth of $80 million. He is best known for being the CEO of ExxonMobil. In a typical year Darren earns around $20 million per year in salary. His base salary is $2.2 million. For example, in 2019 he earned $23.5 million, of which $7 million came from pension benefits, $2.2 million was base salary and the remainder was bonus and stock awards. In 2018 he earned $18 million. As of this writing, Darren owns approximately 830,000 shares of Exxon which are worth around $35 million.

Does the company allow any employees placed in PIP program cruise through 3 month period? No. So then why incompetent DW is being tolerated by the board in the name of showing made up steadiness when there is none. Instead the board is rewarding him because giving him more money.

@whw+1aaLsino

Agree with your comments on 3 and 4. Shameful and short-sighted management decisions having negative impacts on morale and company reputation, not to mention the damage and disrespect to those kicked to the curb without a severance.

Don’t think Exxon’s removal from the Dow was merely shrugged off by Darren. It is true the Dow wanted to reduce O&G weighting but they choose to keep Chevron and dump ExxonMobil. Our huge multi-year decline in market cap was a big reason for the dismissal and a negative judgement about our company’s prospects. Imagine the c—tail party where Lee Raymond and Rex Tillerson “congratulate” Darren on being the first ExxonMobil CEO in 100 years to be dropped from the Dow. Lee Raymond would likely call Darren an embarrassment to his face. No, this wasn’t the non-event you may think it was. Neither is the 36% decline in stock price since he became CEO in 2017.

As far as the 15% workforce reduction, remember to read the Company’s fine print. They are excluding NSI separations from that 15% total because they falsely claim such separations are not part of the workforce reduction goals. Therefore, it’s a 15% reduction through layoffs but rational people will also count the 8% per year via NSI. Vast majority of NSIs take the PIL or don’t “finish” the PIP so the NSI reduction must be in the 7-8% range. Taken together, the layoffs and PIPs add up to a very sizable workforce reduction.

I don’t. Have time to go into this here, but I do think woods was not a good voice for ceo. Every level increase in management requires further ahead thinking. The ceo is supposed to be the most forward thinking. We don’t see that from woods. He is acting like everything will return to normal. Regarding his personality, he isn’t ceo material in my mind. He becomes frustrated and angry easily among other things. He seems very unapproachable as well.

The board realizes this. Their thinking is that this is not the time to make such a large change. They want xom to convey steadiness and the typical xom has a long tenure and to oust one would make the company seem “less perfect”, less steady. I believe we will see woods retire early. My guess is he announces at the end of this year if the board has a good replacement lined up.

"XOM had not implemented workforce reductions annually in the past as they should have." So who is it to blame and get punished for this, hard working worker bees or the managment? How many of these id–t decision makers got pipped or laid off recently, I doubt if very many and if any.

A little fact check:

(1) the Dow Jones decided that O&G was over represented in terms of weighting, so either XOM or Chevron had to go. CVX was viewed as more representative of the U.S. energy sector. Pfizer and Raytheon were also removed. Rebalancing of the DJIA is a normal occurrence and not a direct reflection of any single company’s performance. What did XOM gain from being in the DJIA? Nothing.

(2) The approximate 8% workforce reduction is 2020 was painful for those directly impacted, but hardly of epic proportions. Estimated that 30% of Texas energy workers lost jobs in 2020, so EM was comparably mild. Plus, an announced reduction of 15% over 3 years is hardly draconian given the severity of the Covid impact on global energy, plus XOM had not implemented workforce reductions annually in the past as they should have.

(3) EM acted shamefully in disguising a layoff as something else, and should have offered an industry standard severance package instead.

(4) Employees are rightfully angry about the PiP debacle. Suspension of the company match was reasonable due to financial losses from Covid. Most everything else is just Exxon as it has always been.

(5) Nobody cares

(6) Not all debt is equal. EM took on a lot of low cost debt, which is good.

Funny how boomers are always blamed for current state of portfolio, but Op now says poor rank and file have no responsibility for such now. If shareholders grow unhappy with current management and direction, they can vote them out, but I wouldn’t expect anything like this anytime soon. Overall, mostly an uninformed rant.