American Realty’s Schorsch giving up $100M in pay

Embattled REIT king walking away from comp package amid accounting scandal

From left: Nicholas Schorsch and David Kay
From left: Nicholas Schorsch and David Kay

Nicholas Schorsch, who yesterday resigned from his position as executive chair of scandal-hit American Realty Capital Properties, is giving up $100 million in pay.

According to company filings, the package would have included approximately $91 million in salary and stock and cash bonuses, plus 1 million units of a retention award. Those units were valued at $8.99 million on Tuesday, Bloomberg News reported.

Schorsch will also relinquish about 15 million partnership units, worth $134 million.

Schorsch tendered his resignation Dec. 12. His exit followed the REIT management’s announcement in October that it had discovered accounting errors that were intentionally concealed.

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The firm’s chief executive David Kay also resigned, along with Lisa Benson, the firm’s president and chief operating officer. William Stanley, a director at the company, will act as interim CEO and chair until permanent replacements are named.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the accounting irregularities. Schorsch has not been accused of wrongdoing in the company’s misstatement of results.

Moody’s Investor Service on Tuesday cut ARCP’s credit rating to junk. The company’s stock price has plunged since the announcement of the accounting errors. [Bloomberg News] — Tess Hoffmann