Secretary of state nominee Rex Tillerson set for $180m payout

Rex Tillerson, the nominee of US president-elect Donald Trump for secretary of state, is severing ties with Exxon Mobil through a $180 million dollar (€172 million) retirement package ahead of a Senate confirmation hearing.

Mr Tillerson will surrender all unpaid stock that was part of his pay package, more than two million shares.

In exchange, the company will make a cash payment equal to the value of those shares to a trust to be overseen by a third party, according to a regulatory filing on Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Because of the way the compensation is being dispensed, Mr Tillerson will give up about $7 million (€5.7 million), compared with what he would have been paid had he retired in March as he had planned to do before the nomination.

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Mr Tillerson, who worked for Exxon for more than 40 years, would have reached the company’s mandatory retirement age of 65 by March.

Assets in trust

He would lose all assets in the trust if he returned to the oil and gas industry after leaving government service, the funds being paid out to charities of the controlling trustee’s choosing.

Darren Woods, a 25-year Exxon veteran who had served as the company’s president, took over as chief executive of Exxon Mobil at the start of the new year.

Mr Tillerson began his career at Exxon as a production engineer straight out of the University of Texas at Austin in 1975.

He replaced long-time chief executive Lee Raymond in 2006 and led the company during one of the most turbulent periods in its history. This included the 2008 financial crisis and a collapse in oil prices since mid-2014 that has sharply diluted Exxon’s profits. – (AP)