By: David Koenig, AP Business Writer (AP) The New York Stock Exchange will keep demanding repayment from former chief executive Richard Grasso, despite setting aside $36 million to cover its liability for his compensation, the NYSE's new leader said Tuesday.
CEO John Thain said that figure in the exchange's budget was merely an accounting safeguard and did not indicate that the NYSE expects to lose its case. The exchange, which is asking Grasso to return $120 million of his $187.5 million compensation package, disclosed the set-aside in its annual report Monday.
"None of that says anything about the legal case," Thain told the Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW) at the group's annual conference in Fort Worth.
The NYSE has turned its case against Grasso over to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the New York attorney general's office.
Grasso has maintained that his compensation was proper and has declined to give up the money.
Thain, a former Goldman Sachs executive, took the helm of the exchange three months ago as the NYSE faced a decline in new listings, stepped-up competition from other stock-trading venues, the Grasso affair and a scandal over mishandling of trades by the exchange's specialists. Thain said he underestimated the attention paid to internal workings of the privately held exchange.
"I never realized how much I was in the public eye," Thain said. "The other thing is, I think I underestimated the lack of credibility that the exchange had, particularly in Washington."
Thain also said the NYSE would not offer free listings to companies that are already listed on other exchanges, as the Nasdaq Stock Market has done, saying that free listings didn't make business sense. Nasdaq's move has not had an effect on his exchange, he added.
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