(Reuters) - U.S. car rental company Hertz Global Holdings (N:HTZ) said on Tuesday it has paid about $16.2 million in retention bonuses to a range of key executives at the director level and above, days after the company filed for bankruptcy protection.
The company paid President and Chief Executive Officer Paul Stone $700,000, and Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Jamere Jackson $600,000 as retention bonuses, Hertz said in a filing to the U.S. regulators.
Last week, the board of the company, which counts billionaire investor Carl Icahn as its largest shareholder with a nearly 39% stake, allowed it to seek chapter 11 protection in a U.S. bankruptcy court in Delaware.
The firm is reeling under travel bans and lockdowns imposed to curb the spread of the new coronavirus. Since the virus outbreak, a large portion of Hertz's revenue, which comes from car rentals at airports, have evaporated.
With nearly $19 billion of debt and roughly 38,000 employees worldwide as of the end of 2019, Hertz is among the largest companies to be undone by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Employees who received the retention bonus would forfeit the right to participate in the company's 2020 annual bonus plan.
(This story fixes typo in paragraph 4)