JCPenney has been a sinking ship for years, even when the economy was in great shape. Paying bonuses to those execs may be bad optics, but aside from maybe firing a few less, probably has no bearing on the survival of the company. The company has 4.5B in debt (the bonuses aren't even 0.2% of that total). In the last month they missed $30M in payments (the $17M payment was made eventually) on that debt; these bonuses are only $7.5M. In other words, if they paid no bonuses whatsoever, it has little to no effect on JCPenney's solvency. Eventually, all of the workers will lose their job.

> it has little to no effect on JCPenney's solvency

Distributing the $7.5M to all employees, or as severance to the fired employees, instead of just the execs, would also have had no effect on their solvency...

According to Wikipedia, JCPenny’s has 90,000 employees. Assuming half were furloughed/fired (and it’s probably more than that), then distributing $7,500,000 to 45,000 people is $166/person.

Are you making the point that a large bonus to a few people is better than a small bonus to many people? Can you expand on why that is?

I’m making no judgement or claim either way, just providing context.

I know workers who could really use $166. That's a week of cheap groceries.

"...necessary to retain the management team and keep them motivated..."

CEO Soltau currently earns $5,877,000 a year... isn't that enough motivation?

theoretically he could get similar salaries elsewhere and staying for a sinking ship isn't super desireable. HOWEVER this just goes to show that you reward bad practices.

HOWEVER you also don't want to fire your best people in the worst times. So overall :shrug:

Imagine you are a manager/executive - would you rather be the manager of a stable happy ship, or would you rather be a manager on the Titanic while it's sinking?

A sinking ship needs a better captain than a stable ship.

A big company needs executives whether you like it not, and they need to attract experienced executives who can properly manage the business.

The executives they have now needs to be paid well to make sure the bankruptcy process goes as smoothly as possible and return maximum value to shareholders.

Sure JC Penny could piss off their execs by saying "sorry, because we are going bankrupt, no bonuses for you".

Hearing that, any decent exec would leave and this sinking ship. That would cause JC Penny to have a total chaotic bankruptcy process, which would likely make the business lose a lot more money.

Unlike other employees, executives always deserve huge bonuses

   If they company is doing great, they deserve to be 
   rewarded for causing this to happen

   If the company is doing average, they deserve to be 
   rewarded for keeping it on a steady course

   If the company is doing badly, they deserve to be rewarded 
   for dealing with difficult circumstances

And this is how boards of directors, which are largely composed of people who are themselves executives, or at least live in the same social circles, think about these things.

Bankruptcy court can reverse those depending on when they were granted.