Congratulations to Phil Mickelson on winning the 2009 Northern Trust Open this past weekend at the exclusive Riveria Country Club in Los Angeles. It was a great performance for him where he birdied the 16th and 17th holes to take home $1,134,000.00 in prize money. Unfortunately Northern Trust, the bank that sponsored the event, scored a quarduple bogey with the public. It is mind boggling that they have the audacity to spend like drunken sailors after receiving $1.6 billion in bailout money from the government. Here are a few highlights of their outrageous spending.
The Chicago based bank flew hundreds of employees and clients to LA and put them up in the Beverly Wilshire, Loews and the Ritz Carlton. Nice digs for people using bailout money.
On Wednesday night they held a dinner for clients and friend at the Ritz Carlton with the evening ending with a performance by the band Chicago. If that was not enough, all of the female guest received gifts from none other than Tiffany's
On Thursday their dinner was held in a private hangar at the Santa Monica Airport followed by a private concert by Earth Wind and Fire. But wait... it gets better!
On Saturday they rented out the entire House of Blues on Sunset for a wild night of debauchery with a menu fit for a king. Then the night was topped off with another private concert by Sheryl Crowe. Are you kidding me??
Other perks for their select group included rides to wherever they need to go in mercedes, a cocktail party at Loews, on course and off course hospitality and much more. Don't forget they also paid a huge sponsorship fee that goes towards the marketing and purse for the tournament itself.
Here is the kicker to all of it. In December, Northern Trust laid off 4% of their workforce, or 450 employees. You want to talk about a stimulus package? Kill the parties and extravagance and use the money to keep the 450 families employed and contributing to the economy.
Now you have to understand that I am a marketer and I am all for sponsorships as they do create jobs and drive the economy, but all of the extravagances around the event can go by the wayside. Imagine how much great press Northern Trust could have generated for themselves if they said they were cancelling all of the parties and events in light of the bad economy.
Instead they had the audacity to say they did not spend any of the bailout money on the events, as the money came from the operating expense of the bank. Give me a break... that they could attemt to try to make it better with semantics is just further proof that the banks could not care less about what is going on in the world even though they are largely responsibile for it all.
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