Reuters: Bailed out homebuilders collected fat paychecks while firing nearly half their workforce

[Amerigo Vespucci]

(Reuters) - No one rode the U.S. housing bubble higher than the company that calls itself "America's Builder," D.R. Horton Inc (DHI.N).

Housing Market

During the boom years, Horton and its peers sprawled across the map, opening new divisions and buying up smaller fry in an industry-wide frenzy of expansion and acquisition.

In 2006, the year home prices peaked, D.R. Horton's sales did as well, with 53,099 home sales closed. Its founder predicted the company would break the 100,000-unit barrier by 2010.

That will not happen -- not this year, not anytime soon.

Horton sold just 16,703 homes in 2009. Since the depths of the downturn in 2007, the company has lost more than $3.9 billion and laid off 53 percent of its workers.

But Horton has seen robust growth in one area: executive pay. The company's founder and chairman, D.R. Horton, made $17.6 million from 2007 to 2009, as his annual compensation jumped from $2 million to $7.6 million, according to Equilar, a research firm that specializes in pay.

His chief executive, Donald Tomnitz, received a similar pay hike. Both will receive raises in base salary this year.

The two were not the only ones who profited handsomely during the most perilous stretch in their industry's history, when homebuilders fired nearly half their workforce and lost more than half their market cap.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6452KQ20100506

[noiretextatique]

1. i temped for lennar for a few months...the #2 homebuilder

it was the most dysfunctional place i've ever worked, and i've worked at some really dysfunctional places.