According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, GT Advanced Technologies is asking a bankruptcy court to allow them to pay millions in bonuses to its executives. The new bonus program would reportedly keep its business from being damaged.
In order for the bonus program to take effect, the company needs the approval of a judge because of their October bankruptcy filing.
The first proposed program would cover nine of the company’s senior executives and would double their salaries. GT says that under the new bonus program the senior executives would receive $2.275 million.
“A spokesman and an attorney for GT both didn’t respond Tuesday to questions about which top executives are qualified to share in the bonuses. Chief Executive Thomas Gutierrez said he can’t respond to inquiries. As a publicly traded company, GT is required to report the compensation of top-ranking executives in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.”
The second bonus program that was proposed, which would effect 28 people, would pay out $1.4 million.
“Less than a year after announcing it would transform itself from a solar-power and sapphire-producing-equipment maker to a maker of smartphone screen material for Apple, GT filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, blaming Apple. Apple has denied it was responsible for GT’s collapse.”
In October, GT filed for bankruptcy following a failed deal with Apple, where they failed to meet Apple’s expectations for the sapphire material. In order to pay off its debt to Apple, GT Advanced had to sell its sapphire manufacturing equipment.
The total monetary value that was paid to Apple was around $439 million. The bankruptcy filing is responsible for more than 800 lost jobs.
