Company Employees Get Unexpected Gift As CEO Turns Real-Life Santa Claus, Gifts $240 Million Bonus

(MENAFN- Live Mint) A US factory chief is making headlines for his benevolent gesture. Former CEO of Fibrebond, Graham Walker, turned real-life Santa Claus for 540 full-time employees after he presented them with six-figure bonus. As per The Wall Street Journal report, the cumulative amount of payout amount totalled $240 million.

Graham Walker sold the company for $1.7 billion to Eaton and in the terms of the contract required the buyer to earmark 15% of the proceeds for its employees. Even though none of the employees owned stock, each worker would receive an average payout of $443,000 over a period of 5 years.

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Asserting that this requirement was non-negotiable, he suggested that this compensation would enable the scores of employees to restart. The 46-year-old acknowledged the work of these employees who had put in efforts so that the company could navigate through decades of booms, busts and near-collapse situations.

The process of payouts started in June once the takeover process was finalised earlier this year. With long-tenured employees receiving far more individual awards than others, employees received sealed envelopes detailing their payouts. While some of them believed it to be a prank, others were overwhelmed with emotion.

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Fibrebond, which is now acquired by Eaton, used to design and build pre-integrated modular power enclosures used at data centres. The company was founded in 1982 by Walker's father, Claud Walker.

During the 1990s cellular boom, Fibrebond thrived and enjoyed substantial market power but 1998 it faced a major setback when its factory was reduced to ashes. During those days production stalled but the Walkers stood true to its loyalty culture and continued paying employees their renumeration.

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The dot-com bust slashed by the early 2000s bringing down Fibrebond's customer base to just three clients. From a workforce of 900, massive layoffs downsized the number of employees to just 320.

By the early 2000s, the dot-com bust slashed Fibrebond's customer base to just three clients, forcing layoffs that cut the workforce from roughly 900 to 320. This was when Graham Walker and his brother took the operations. To revive the company, the Walker brothers sold assets to bring down debt while they searched for a new market.

A risky $150 million investment bore results and turned around the fortune for Fibrebond when cloud computing demand surged during the pandemic. During this time, sales grew nearly 400% in five years and as a result big industrial players started showing interest in its acquisition.

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