Thread regarding ExxonMobil Corp. layoffs

@2lvu
Great quote on the seeking alpha article!

For people who are lazy to read the whole article, I'm copying 2 important points from the article that are related to the original post below. They added much more sense to the original discussion.

"Exxon Mobil would be better off without a large dividend. The company could still pay a small dividend like Apple or Microsoft, but they would have $10+ billion in additional funds annually to build up the balance sheet or make an asset purchase with the energy sector beaten down such as the Chevron (CVX) deal to buy Noble Energy (NBL) with that stock down over 50% in the last year."

"The key investor takeaway is that Exxon Mobil doesn't control their market and management doesn't appear to have any desire to generate actual returns for investors. The company paying a dividend distribution over the last decade has basically amounted to Exxon Mobil returning the original investment to shareholders. A shareholder would be far better off, if the company were to slash the dividend and focus on generating actual positive returns for shareholders via wise and timely acquisitions and long-term growth."

Netflix is larger than ExconMobil. Tesla is larger than ExxonMobil. The Energy outlook is a joke , nobody drinks XOM coolaid that oil will be king forever and ever. Altetnatives are no longer alternatives, they are mainstream: covid is just the proverbial straw.. There is no growth, the stock will never get above $50, and we'll be a $90B company within the next 10 years, maybe sooner. Run, if you still can.

Shareholders have consistently tried to have an independent Board by voting to split the CEO and chairman role. I doubt after this it won’t pass next year - but maybe by then it will be too late.

Seeking Alpha makes a compelling case that by not looking for the long term health, management is shortchanging shareholders. The market cap drop doesn’t offset the value received via dividend:
“ A shareholder would be far better off, if the company were to slash the dividend and focus on generating actual positive returns for shareholders via wise and timely acquisitions and long-term growth.“

It’s too bad we have people unwilling to think critically, and use their commercial expertise and point this out. It’s even worse we have too many crude sycophants, who advance the false narrative of employees vs shareholders and take pleasure in making themselves more important by blaming concerned employees.

Investors will hold the management committee accountable, eventually.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4364160-exxon-mobil-dividend-should-be-risk

@1lck Agreed, let us all milk the cow until it bleeds. Kodak style.

Giving management stock makes them think like Shareholders, the owners of the company. They are doing what needs to be done to reward the owners. Employees are opex and opex is to minimized. If cost cutting gets the share price back up and keeps the dividend growing, then cut more. This retired employee has no sympathy for the SNOWFLAKES employed since 2005.

Corporate capitalism: The workers pay the price to increase the stock price and executives take all the credit.... and will get huge bonuses and payoff via stock once the stock price rebounds. Gotta keep the shareholders happy even if it means destroying employee morale.

@1fnq you crack me up. We didn't lose valuable employees, we rid the company of low value positions. More cuts need to come to the company anyway.

Regardless of paying the dividend or not, there is no longer growth opportunity for the company for years. There is no reason to have a workforce as large as we have today to sit around and do nothing. Projects, expansions, growth opportunities are on a standstill for years.

People looking at the dividind and saying we should have used that to pay the employees that were let go are just as short sighted as the ones on Wall Street. Big picture, company needs to get rid of people today for there to be a company in the future.

@1pnf

Wow boomer. Did you come up with that on your own? You done F—ED up by investing serious money in this company

The reason the company is outsourcing is not because of retention... It's because labor is cheaper than USA. Why pay 1 engineer here when you can pay 5 in AP.

The company spent almost $20B the past 1.5 years to keep the dividend, most of it by borrowing money at high interest rates. What was the reward from the shareholders? -50% Market Cap. Home Depot is now considered an almost twice as valuable share to hold. Did the actual performance of the company improve as a result of this spending? Of course not.

All of that money could have been used to invest, keep good talent, explore new avenues of making profits. All of that money was flushed down the drain. And now after 2 quarterly losses, their strategy is to kick out valuable employees and have the remaining employee working on preparing resumes and going to interviews, instead of inspiring them to work hard to save the ship.

@osg
Your idiocy made me laugh!

1. What's your definition of "long term young talent"? Is it the talent of BS'ing and playing games to stay? I have lost count of young kids that I know of leaving the company who were technically skilled and had great attitude and potential.

2. The original poster did not say anything about "suspending" the dividend but rather what make more sense to cut. However, a$$h- like you act like you are going to lose all the dividend and want to protect it at all cost. I'm also a shareholder with a significant amount of my savings put in XOM but I don't think I fall into your category of "shareholders". I want to see how ExxonMobil leadership's decision will affect my investment in 30 years from now, not this year or next year. Do you think by putting the interest of the shareholders above its own employees will make Exxon survive and thrive in the future? Look around and see where Exxon is now. Once the world most powerful and richest company now is sliding down the SP500 with a market cap that's not even close to a car company, yet people like you still think mighty of the company and how you are the best. Old employees are behind on current technology and trends, while young and capable employees keep leaving even before all this pandemic happened. Because of that, the company has had to spend so much money to outsource projects. It's the FAT like you that needs to be cleaned from the company if the shareholders want a long term benefit of their dividends.

to the person with $12K dividend per year, so you are willing to lose $10K pre-tax 401(k) instead of $1.5K out of $12K (1% from the current 7.96% dividend)? That's very smart. I'm impressed. I guess those who support the 401(k) "suspension" are also smart like you.

Well I get 12k a year in dividend and about 10k a year in match....so uh

To the person offended my grandmothers. You are a snowflake....

To the person commenting on Grandmothers.....I am offended!

Investors are more important than employees. The Board and Executives answer to the investment community and not the employees. Sooner you learn that the better you will understand the BS.

Young talent isn't going to run for the hills.

There are millions of retail shareholders who OWN the company. Employees are merely hired guns. Grandmothers are owners of the company decide if it is in the best interest of the owners of the company to reduce the dividend. Grandma decided her income is more important than keeping low performers employed. Large numbers of Long term young talent will not leave and the ones that want to leave should leave now. Exxonmobil employees, including the executives, are overpaid. This is a way to cut costs until oil prices rise while preserving base income for Grandma owners and 95% of employees. Executives had had their income reduced dramaticlly because compensation is most in stock and stock has be cut in half. Time for regular employees to share the pain.

One of the key reasons that Darren and his buddies do not plan on cutting dividend is simply to protect their personal income streams. If you are not aware, top executives get bonus, incentive awards, and deferred pay all together ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands XOM stock units per year. Over the years, each of them have amassed on the order of a million XOM stock units or more, which amount to over three millions USD of additional annual dividend cash flow for their personal life, for now. I can also assure you that, before collecting their fat check at retirement, this level of dividend income, $3+MM per year, is quite an important portion of their annual income. So why would they cut the dividend for their own interests?

"Will 401k cuts do irreparable harm for the long term of this company? Not at all." = id–t. Just wait until your young talent runs for the doors.

Will 401k cuts do irreparable harm for the long term of this company? Not at all.

Agree that holding the dividend sacred does not seem to make great business sense. They will sacrifice anything to keep the dividend going. Except, that is, take on debt. Therefore, the only other option is deep cuts elsewhere in the corp.

There should be an even balance of focus between employees/shareholders/customers. If you put too much weight one one group(e.g., shareholders via dividend), its usually because of greed/pride/corruption. In this case, seems to me its a pissing contest (pride) to see who can hold maintain the dividend the longest. Currently seems to be a race between cvx and xom. I wouldn’t bet against cvx as they have been running a badass ship the past 10 years. Give it up, put your pride away, and do whats best as for the company as a whole. An inordinate punishment of employees is going to bite ‘em in the a–, long term.

The continued dividend makes up a large part of stock price. Cutting it has fairly significant impacts. I think from a shareholder perspective, the voting party would be to remove our 401k and keep paying the dividend.

Shareholders run this company, not DW.

He’s hoping we will resign? No way! Not until they give us a decent severance package!

Frankly, Darren Woods should have known that he is unqualified to manage Exxon and move on with his life.. unless everyone is singing praises around him. Perhaps the reason why we are his “courage of conviction”, which hurts our 401K.. Woods BAAAAD...

Well, it also serves another purpose. If anyone was on the fence about doing pip or leaving, this might give them a nudge. Eases the pain for both employees and employer!

Isn’t the dividend a point of pride? Who will be the CEO that breaks this the 37 year streak on his watch?