Companies had seen a surge in shareholder proposals regarding executive compensation in the last few years. Indeed, we wrote about this issue as recently as November 2016 (see, Apple Must Include Shareholder Proposal on Executive Compensation in Proxy). But there has been no such surge thus far in 2017. READ MORE
Say-on-pay laws increase company valuations, study finds
When shareholders have a say on executive pay, CEO salaries decline and company valuations rise, according to a University of Georgia study.
By analyzing financial data from more than 17,000 publicly traded companies in countries that have passed say-on-pay laws and countries that haven't, researchers found such laws tie CEO pay more closely to their company's performance and increase compensation equality among top managers. READ MORE
How Companies Actually Decide What to Pay CEOs
In 2014, 500 of the highest-paid senior executives at U.S. companies made nearly 1,000 times as much money as the average American worker, after taking into account salary, bonuses, and stock-based compensation. That discrepancy is so enormous that it prompts a question: How exactly do companies come up with and calibrate the often-colossal pay packages they give to their leaders? READ MORE
Goodwill Omaha says it cut $1 million from executive pay in effort to keep tax-exempt status
Fighting to keep its thrift stores’ exemption from property taxes, Goodwill Omaha representatives told the Douglas County Board on Tuesday that the organization has cut its executive pay by about $1 million. READ MORE
District Court Dismisses Shareholder Claim that Equity Award Share Withholding Triggers Section 16(b) Liability
During the past several months, a shareholder has been submitting letters to public companies taking the position that, contrary to the customary interpretation, there is no exemption under Rule 16b-3(e) for elective share withholding by an insider. READ MORE
Pension funds team up to oppose 6 Mylan directors
Four large pension funds have asked shareholders of the drug company Mylan NV to vote against six directors, including the company's chairman, who have been nominated for re-election at the company's annual meeting June 22. READ MORE
Deferring compensation now could help you in retirement
There are obviously many retirement vehicles you, as a corporate executive, have considered, but have you overlooked the option of the company-sponsored non-qualified deferred compensation plan? READ MORE
How Employee Incentive Programs Can Benefit from Behavioral Economics
When James Brewer stepped into his role as U.S. Director of Reward and Recognition at pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly in 2011, it was going through a transformation. He was tasked with coming up with a new incentive plan for employees—particularly its sales reps—that aligned with the company's new corporate strategy, Brewer explained to an audience at WorldatWork's Total Rewards 2017 conference in Washington D.C. Monday. In other words, he needed to be able to motivate and engage employees in a way that fit with the company's new direction—that was now both customer and team-focused. READ MORE
Tips For Building An Effective Total Rewards Communications Strategy
The economy is expected to continue to grow steadily, which means more people are working and fewer people are out of work. This is great news, of course, but it presents a special challenge for employers as they compete to attract increasingly job-savvy employees — either the few who are out of work or those who are already employed at other companies. A growing economy means workers have a lot of options; the only way to win the best talent is to position your company as a great place to work. READ MORE
How Well Do Firms Measure CEO Performance?
Investors have pressed for years to get companies to tie executive pay more closely to performance, and boards have increasingly complied. But now, some investors are questioning just how high they set the bar. READ MORE
How Do I Count My Performance Share Awards? Let Me Count the Ways
Wow, there are 16 different ways to count performance share awards! Well, there may not be 16 different ways, but there are 16 different purposes for which a company must count its performance share awards, some of which are the same, but many of which are different. When a company or compensation committee awards performance shares or performance share units, the number of shares delivered to the participant generally depends upon the degree of satisfaction of the performance goals set forth in the award agreement. READ MORE
Gardner Denver Gives Over $100 Million In Stock Grants To Employees In Market Return
With PE firms amassing record amounts of cash from limited partners and poised to gobble up public companies at an increasing rate, it appears KKR is paying closer attention to the ways in which it can spread the wealth on successful investments. READ MORE
It’s Time for Trump to Do Something About High CEO Pay
The House is expected to vote Thursday on a Wall Street deregulation plan that would roll back several Obama-era CEO pay reforms, including a ban on banker bonuses that encourage excessive risk, and a new regulation that requires publicly held corporations to report the ratio between their CEO and median worker pay. But instead of rolling back modest pay reforms already on the books, lawmakers should be pushing for bolder solutions, such as using tax and government contracting policies that reward firms with reasonable CEO pay levels. READ MORE
Consider compensation plans that build a business
It's possible to compensate employees in ways that motivate them beyond what a simple salary will, but it takes planning and tweaking.
The end result should be happier employees, increased revenue and lowered expenses, therefore higher profits overall, says John Felkins, director of the All Access division for an organization called EntreLeadership, a business advisory group headed by Dave Ramsey. Ramsey is the money management guru who built an international business organization, starting from his living-room-based writing and speaking business. Felkins and EntreLeadership recently hosted a webinar on employee compensation. READ MORE
A millennial's math on compensation
I graduated from business school with roughly $200,000 of debt and a choice. I could manage investments in the family office of one of the world’s top hedge funds or I could take a job at the Connecticut Green Bank. The difference in salary and bonus was, to put it mildly, appreciable. I chose the Green Bank.
For the (many) people who measure the worth of a job by its paycheck, my choice is mystifying. They rationalize my decision as the admirable, perhaps naïve, pursuit of meaningful work: I’m a public servant. I’m helping society. I feel good about what I do. Yes, this is all true, but such assessments are incomplete for three reasons. First, they conflate a job with a career. Second, they oversimplify the math on compensation. Third, they ignore a fundamental shift underway in the business community: The idea that we have to choose between "doing good" for the world and "doing well" for ourselves is increasingly misguided. READ MORE
Nursing home CEO wants $100M payout amid bankruptcy threat
The landlord of America’s second-biggest nursing home chain is haggling with the company’s top executive over a lavish compensation package, even as the chain teeters on the edge of bankruptcy, sources told The Post.
Paul Ormond, CEO of HCR ManorCare, is demanding $100 million in deferred compensation that private equity giant Carlyle Group promised to pay him as part of a $6.3 billion buyout of the company in 2007, according to sources close to the situation. READ MORE
Dissecting Marissa Mayer’s $900,000-a-Week Yahoo Paycheck
When a withered Yahoo is absorbed by Verizon Communications in the next week or so, it will be the end of an era for one of the pioneering names of the internet age.
It will also conclude the remarkable five-year run of Yahoo’s chief executive, Marissa Mayer, who was paid nearly a quarter of a billion dollars — a generous sum even by Silicon Valley’s lofty standards — while presiding over the company’s continued decline. READ MORE
Why Companies Should Measure “Share of Growth,” Not Just Market Share
Accelerating growth is on every CEO’s agenda. Each year business leaders commit to an overall revenue growth target, but the reality is that growth within a business is often very uneven. Some parts grow faster, and one hopes that they offset the other parts that may be declining. Dave Calhoun, former vice chair at General Electric and now senior managing director at Blackstone, says that it’s better to double down on your winners than to invest in fixing the losers. But many companies have a one-size-fits-all mindset toward metrics, which makes it hard to use that judgment when allocating resources from the top. READ MORE
This Capitalist Is Fighting Skyrocketing CEO Pay Because It’s Bad for Business
While Congress is working to shield overpaid executives from scrutiny, a business-owner-turned-state-legislator is working to rein in runaway CEO pay because, he says, "there need to be limits." READ MORE
Fired Uber Executive Said to Forfeit $250 Million Stock Grant
Anthony Levandowski lost both his job at Uber Technologies Inc. and a potential $250 million payday.
Levandowski, 37, who was terminated from the San Francisco-based company on Tuesday, got 5.31 million shares when he was hired in August. The grant was set to vest based on his continued service and achievement of certain performance milestones. Levandowski was employed at-will and none of the shares had vested when he left, according to an Uber executive familiar with the matter. READ MORE