NYSE 'outsider' quits in Grasso furore

THE furore over the pay package of New York Stock Exchange's ex-chairman Richard Grasso appears to have claimed another scalp over the weekend, that of Daimler-Chrysler chief executive Jurgen Schrempp.

A spokesman for the car maker said Schrempp, the Big Board's only foreign director had quit his NYSE directorship, but the Exchange had yet to confirm the departure.

A wave of directors is expected to resign - or be forced out - as John Reed, the new interim chairman, starts his first full week in the job. While Reed has not yet commented, some NYSE members have indicated they want the board reduced in size from 27 to 10 or 11 directors.

There was no indication as to why Schrempp was going. He had criticised Grasso's $140m (£84.4m) pay package in board meetings in August. News of the award triggered weeks of crisis.

Last week, H Carl McCall, briefly at the helm of the world's largest stock exchange after Grasso's departure, resigned.

Among the most vulnerable of the remaining directors is Kenneth Langone, chairman of the Exchange's compensation committee and a loyal Grasso supporter. Langone has so far resisted calls to quit. But the house-cleaning could run far wider, echoing the top-level corporate purge that Reed conducted at Citigroup in the 1980s after he became chairman of the US financial group. Also seen as likely to go are the Big Board's co-chief operating officers Robert Britz and Catherine Kinney.

The duo are closely identified with the Grasso era.