Departed SCANA executives won’t get golden parachutes after nuclear project’s collapse

SCANA will not offer a golden parachute to two executives who retired last year after the company's $9 billion nuclear construction project went belly up.

Former chief executive Kevin Marsh and chief operating officer Steve Byrne also are not eligible for change-in-control payments, potentially worth millions of dollars, that could be triggered if the Cayce-based company finalizes its sale to Dominion Energy of Virginia.

The payments would have been worth millions of dollars for each executive.

SCANA’s board discussed the possibility of offering severance and other benefits to Marsh and Byrne but decided against it given “the unique context of the (nuclear project’s) abandonment and the company’s responsibilities to our ratepayers and shareholders,” company spokesman Eric Boomhower wrote in an emailed statement Friday afternoon.

“We thank Kevin and Steve for their years of loyal service to SCANA and wish them well as they move forward,” Boomhower wrote.

Marsh and Byrne announced their retirements on Oct. 31, three months after SCANA’s electric subsidiary, SCE&G, and state-owned Santee Cooper pulled the plug on a 10-year effort to build two new nuclear reactors at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Generating Station in Fairfield County.

They were among several SCANA executives who took heat last fall for accepting some $3 million in performance-based bonuses for their work on a project that ultimately failed.

SCANA paid Marsh $6.1 million in 2016. Byrne earned nearly $2.6 million.

It is unknown exactly what the two former SCANA leaders might have earned in severance pay. However, based on their salaries, stock ownership and a host of other factors, they each could have been paid millions to walk away if the company were sold.

Marsh, for example, would have been due $28 million had he left SCANA in December 2016 after a hypothetical takeover. Byrne would have been due $12.8 million in the same circumstances.

SCANA still will offer Marsh health insurance supplementary premiums until he turns 65 and will provide the much-maligned executive one year of home security monitoring. Byrne will get 18 months of health insurance supplementary premiums.

This story was originally published January 6, 2018 at 8:57 AM with the headline "Departed SCANA executives won’t get golden parachutes after nuclear project’s collapse."