Of greed and $6,000 shower curtains

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© St. Petersburg Times
published August 9, 2002

In the 1980s we learned all about $700 toilet seats ordered by the military. Then we heard how Miami savings and loan executive David Paul had a thing for gold-plated plumbing in his executive restroom.

Now we are told former Tyco International CEO Dennis Kozlowski, who blew tens of millions of Tyco money as if it was his own, spent $6,000 on a floral-patterned shower curtain. (Dennis, please tell me that included the plastic liner.)

What is it with obscene spending on bathroom accessories?

Just when it seems safe to creep back into the corporate waters, another CEO steps forward with a new "can you top this?" lifestyle -- just to prove that greed knows no bounds.

Kozlowski's profile of corporate pilfering and lavish excess is so extensive, so over the top and so conniving that there's not enough room in this column to tell it all. The Wall Street Journal reported some of the more outrageous spending by Kozlowski on Boca Raton and Nantucket mansions, artwork by Renoir and Monet, fancy furnishings, parties, vacations, charities (in his name), endowments and -- yes -- a shower curtain for his 13-room, Fifth Avenue duplex in Manhattan, complete with four fireplaces and picture-window views of Central Park.

Kozlowski, it was reported, effectively looted Tyco to the tune of $135-million. Not a penny of this was disclosed to shareholders. (He quit Tyco in June, one day before he was charged with tax evasion by Manhattan's district attorney.)

Now I know you just read over $135-million with the typical yawn. Yet another scuzzball CEO loots shareholders of lots of money to live like an emperor. You've heard that line too often lately.

Which brings us to something easier to grasp. The shower curtain. Gold and burgundy. For $6,000. Is that even possible?

Should we be more appalled at Kozlowski for buying it, Tyco's board of directors for allowing it in the first place, or the shower curtain's designer for daring to price it higher than a full year of tuition at the University of Florida?

It's doubly troubling because Kozlowski, now 56, already earned too much as one of the nation's highest-paid executives. In the past three years alone, he has made $332-million, including salary, bonus, and long-term compensation such as exercised stock options for 1999, 2000 and 2001. Had he remained until 65 as Tyco's chief, his pension would have paid him $343,112. Per month.

Leo Dennis Kozlowski, the beefy, balding son of a New Jersey police detective, denies any wrongdoing.

Here's a good joke. It seems $4-million of Tyco/Kozlowski money was given to Cambridge University in England for -- get this -- a professorship in corporate governance.

Just three months ago, New Hampshire's St. Anselm College Class of 2002 listened to invited keynote speaker (then still Tyco CEO) Kozlowski warn about life's challenges. "You will be confronted with questions every day that test your morals," he told the graduating seniors. "Think carefully, and for your sake, do the right thing, not the easy thing."

You should have listened to your own advice, Dennis the Menace.

Short takes

CORPORATE TROPHY ART?: While Tyco's Kozlowski was busy snapping up French impressionist paintings, Houston's Enron Corp. was busy assembling an art collection to reflect its "cutting-edge" culture. Just eight months before Enron started to collapse, an in-house art committee was handed $20-million and told to buy contemporary art. Among the purchases: a vinyl sculptured light switch for $590,000.

Now most of the art is in storage, awaiting a sale. It seems doubtful any of the thousands of Enron workers who lost their jobs and retirement savings will be among the bidders. Enron's five-member art committee was led by Lea Fastow. She's the wife of ex-Enron chief financial officer Andrew Fastow, now at the center of the scandal surrounding the company's collapse. . .

CFOs UNDER PRESSURE: A new survey of 141 chief financial officers by CFO magazine finds 17 percent say their CEOs had pressured them to misrepresent results in the past five years. And 5 percent did so, admitting that they had violated generally accepted accounting principles at least once in the past five years. . .

OUR LOSS, THEIR GAIN: Marketing professor William L. Rhey, associate dean of the University of Tampa's John H. Sykes College of Business and the former director of the school's Center for Ethics, was lured away this summer to head Jacksonville University's Davis College of Business. . .

HAIR TODAY, GONE...: Why is that man getting his head shaved live on Wachovia Bank's internal television network? It seems Ben Jenkins, head of general banking operations, joked that he would give up his black-and-silver hair if the bank increased deposits in May and June. He lost the bet. Wachovia, still known as First Union in Florida, will adopt its new name in the state later this year.

-- Robert Trigaux can be reached at trigaux@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8405.

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