It’s never a good thing if you did something to gather the attention of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which most of the time seems to deal with shady stock trades. But getting the SEC’s attention thanks to an advertising deal? General Motors managed to do just that.
The business deals with GM and Mother, an international creative marketing agency with offices all over the world, including New York, to whom GM paid $600,000 for creative web videos celebrating the 100th anniversary of Chevrolet. The strange part? The Chief Operating Officer of Mother New York is Pernilla Ammann. The last name should ring a bell.
If you hadn’t caught on, Pernilla Ammann is the wife of GM’s Chief Financial Officer Dan Ammann, whose connection to the ad firm seemed to have gone “unnoticed”. Notably, GM executives are contractually required to disclose personal ties to outside companies, which was a procedure that Ammann didn’t follow. Lastly, Mrs. Ammann would definitely have known about the dealing, considering her position at Mother.
Comments
Dan is in Finance and the awarding of the contract would come from the Marketing Group. He would not have any decision making in the process except maybe in the overall budget for the Marketing Department. I say – “No Harm, No Foul”. The SEC needs to spend their time on the real criminals on Wall Street that somehow managed to make (A LOT!!) of money through the economic crisis while the rest of us were struggling to make a living…
The real crime is the brief… Ugh!! Is it an advertisement for a car company or a real estate firm that wants you to buy a house in Bridgeville??? Bridgeville is Americana?? Then why is the most memorable guy in the clip, obviously foriegn??
One hand greases another. I say oust the guy.
Last thing GM needs is questionable conflicts of interest. Sure he’s CFO and they’re Marketing – who signs off on ad budgets?
Thing is – his salary was disclosed as $750,000 cash/yr + $2.1million in stock. I’d say the guy is highly compensated, wouldn’t you? So why does the wifey need a kickback? Is the vacation home in Cannes in need of a makeover?
Yes, even a slight breach of conduct must go punished if discipline and integrity will stay at GM, which usually are virtues that decrease with higher profit, ironically.
Quite unprofessional for such a high level executive. He knows the rules, all GM salaried employees are required to sign off. If it was a sixth-level employee, they most likely would loose their job.
He probably wont lose his job, but he should.
I agree with tp1943; I believe most anyone that caught the (negative) attention of the SEC would be immediately disposed of.