Subject: fw : bridgeline
do you need more from me on how we would structure the jean deal if we did it ? seems unlikely based on below we will be able to .
david
- - - - - original message - - - - -
from : redmond , brian
sent : thursday , august 02 , 2001 9 : 39 pm
to : kitchen , louise
cc : oxley , david
subject : bridgeline
louise :
i spoke to texaco today and put forth the following alternatives : ( 1 ) remove randy and put jean in his place ( i did offer to consider paying randy out of his contract ) , ( 2 ) transfer all texaco / enron employees to bridgeline without the ability for them to get paid out and walk away when the texaco / chevron merger occurs .
texaco strongly . . . . no violently . . . . opposes installing jean as president , as they feel that everyone would quit - and no doubt many would . my counter was that many of these people may quit anyway once the texaco merger occurs , so we are in the same spot but with a president that is committed to the company . my personal feeling is that we would also loose a number of the enron folks , but we could recover , and may be better off .
i ' m not sure we have a legal case to force randy out , especially given texaco ' s violent opposition . however , the threat of jean as president seems to have a good deal of motivational power . jack abadie committed to propose the following to texaco in his meeting in nyc next week :
1 . all employees become bridgeline employees now .
2 . texaco employees get paid by texaco their severance as follows : ( half when the merger occurs , the remainder after 12 - 24 months .
3 . if texaco employees leave they loose the unpaid severance .
i am going to develop our legal position to see what leverage we have ( or don ' t have ) . i do have the " open cost issues " as a bargaining chip , but would like to drive this to a crisis point before playing that card .
i have a bet with texaco that i can have the bridgeline benefits plan in place by the end of the month . jeannie slone is committed to this goal .
also , i have not yet relayed the texaco conversation with jean and would like to hold off to see how this plays out .
regards ,
brian