I'm not biting either
It is more than obvious why this is coming now and imho this is not a gesture it's a manouver
And according to the following post from the Dallas Morning Hearld the top officers will, once again, make out like Bonnie and Clyde..
Officers' rewards
However, the performance stock plan apparently will pay off for the officers and key employees who participate, he said.
The latest awards, to be distributed in April, are based on how the price of AMR shares performed between the start of 2005 and the end of 2007 compared with Continental Airlines Inc., Delta Air Lines Inc., JetBlue Airways Corp., Northwest Airlines Corp. and Southwest Airlines Co.
If AMR shares ranked last, plan participants would get no stock. If they ranked fifth, each participant would get 50 percent of the target number of shares set for that employee; fourth would earn 75 percent of the target; third would mean 100 percent; second would earn 135 percent; and first would mean 175 percent.
However, Delta and Northwest both filed for bankruptcy in 2005, eliminating them, so the worst that executives in the AMR plan can do is 75 percent of their targeted amount.
As it turned out, AMR shares finished second behind Continental shares in price appreciation, meaning AMR personnel will get 135 percent of their targeted amount. For example, a manager whose target was set at 1,000 shares in 2005 will get 1,350 shares when the 2005-07 shares are distributed.
The company doesn't disclose how many people participate in the stock performance plan, but the unions have put the number at nearly 900 a year. That would indicate the average participant was in line to receive close to 5,000 shares valued at more than $60,000.
However, the bulk of the awards go to the top 50 executives, unions have said. And nearly 13 percent of the stock would go to the airline's top five officials, including chief executive Gerard Arpey, Mr. Horton, executive vice presidents Dan Garton and Robert Reding, and senior vice president and general counsel Gary Kennedy.
The top five
Based on the 135 percent bonus, Mr. Arpey would be in line to receive 189,000 shares in April, worth $2.5 million at Tuesday's close. Mr. Horton and Mr. Garton would get 104,760 shares, valued at just under $1.4 million, and Mr. Reding and Mr. Kennedy would get 76,950 shares, valued at just over $1 million.
The AMR board will review the performance of Mr. Arpey and a handful of other top executives to decide how much of their stock award they deserve. Last year, the board set their award at 154 percent of target, rather than the maximum 175 percent.
Mr. Keith estimated that the target amount in the 2005-07 plan is about 3.2 million shares, meaning that the pot at 135 percent will be about 4.3 million shares – worth about $57 million, based on Tuesday's closing price of $13.20 on the New York Stock Exchange.
The 2006 awards, based on AMR's stock performance in 2003-05, totaled over $90 million. The 2007 awards, based on 2004-06 stock prices, were worth more than $160 million on the distribution date.
AMR shares have been sliding in recent months and are down by two-thirds from a year ago. But that doesn't matter in the awards plan – only that AMR stock is doing better than that of its competitors.
