From Louisiana comes the story of a corporate dream fulfilled, as a man succeeded his father as CEO of the family business, invested in innovation which paid off, and guided the business through a big sale.
But there was something else that Graham Walker had in his mind to achieve when he prepared to hand over the reins of Fibrebond: the rewarding of his people.
Enclosed in the sale agreement was a clause that 15% of the sale price should be paid out over 5 years as bonuses to his 540 employees—amounting to $240 million. Each employee will receive $443,000, according to the Wall Street Journal.
“I hope I’m 80 years old and get an email about how it’s impacted someone,” Mr. Walker said.
Fibrebond was founded by Graham’s father, Claud, in 1982. It has gone through boom times and the bust times, remaining solvent through a devastating fire, and the dot com bubble. In the mid 2000s, Graham and his brother took charge of the company, and in 2020 began to invest in the materials and know-how to build data centers.
It was a choice that gave the company an early-mover advantage, and today, the company website states, it maintains more than 51,000 modules deployed to projects across the country, making Fibrebond the nation’s leading manufacturer of complex electrical modules used in the data centers.
Following the sale of the company at $1.7 billion to Eaton, a smart power company and client of Fibrebond since 2015, Graham penned an emotional letter.
“Last week, we gathered together and recognized every Fibrebond employee,” he wrote. “We shared the same humbling question, how did we build this? Forty-three years of memories, failures, successes, and opportunities came forth as tears, hugs, and profound joy. Our family fulfilled a commitment that we would all win together, and over two days, we shared details of that commitment.”
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Company employees told the journal that news of the bonuses were met with shock and emotion, with people saying they’d use the money to pay off student loans, finance retirement, and go on vacation.
“It was surreal, it was like telling people they won the lottery. There was absolute shock,” said Hector Moreno, a Fibrebond executive who distributed the bonuses, according to the journal.
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