Category: Executive Compensation
Investors challenge fund managers on say-on-pay vote practices
by Cydney Posner Support for management on say-on-pay votes for the 2016 season so far (data as of May 18) continues at about the same level as in prior years – a median approval rate of 95% among the S&P 500, according to Compensation Advisory Partners, with only three companies […]
Do women directors promote higher CEO pay?
by Cydney Posner As reported on Sunday in this NYT column by Gretchen Morgenson, recent data shows that boards with more gender diversity pay higher compensation to their CEOs. An Equilar analysis of CEO pay at 100 large companies “found that companies with greater gender diversity on their boards paid their chief executives […]
Increasing prevalence of non-GAAP measures in proxy statements
by Cydney Posner According to the WSJ, 2016 saw the biggest gap since 2009 between non-GAAP pro forma results and GAAP results. But non-GAAP measures are not just proliferating in earnings releases, they are also proliferating in proxy statements. The WSJ article reports that, according to Audit Analytics, the term […]
SEC posts Regulatory Flexibility Agenda for 2017
by Cydney Posner As noted in Broc’s blog on thecorporatecounsel.net, the SEC has posted its Regulatory Flexibility Agenda for 2017. And, as Broc observes, these agendas are, to borrow his characterization, purely “aspirational,” and do not commit the SEC to take any of the actions identified or preclude its taking […]
Equilar report on trends in director stock ownership guidelines
by Cydney Posner The consulting firm Equilar has recently issued a Report on its study of trends in the design and prevalence of director stock ownership guidelines among Fortune 100 companies. The study looked at the fiscal years 2012, 2013 and 2014. Stock ownership guidelines typically require directors to own […]
Shareholder proposals to exclude the impact of buybacks from executive comp metrics — will they become a new trend?
A recurring demand by hedge fund activists is that the target company return capital to its shareholders by buying back its own stock. Data compiled by S&P and Bloomberg shows that companies in the S&P 500 spent 95% of their earnings on repurchases and dividends in 2014, including spending $553 billion on stock buybacks. But, in some cases, conducting a stock buyback can be an ultimatum with which company executives are actually happy to comply. Why? One of the more appealing consequences of the buyback trend for company executives is that, in some cases where compensation performance metrics are stock-price- or EPS-related, buybacks can juice executive compensation, irrespective of the operational success of the company. Now, some governance activists are beginning to challenge whether that favorable consequence should be curtailed.
Is it a mistake to insist that CEO pay be performance-based?
by Cydney Posner It goes without saying that, to many, the sine qua non of executive compensation is performance-based pay. From proxy advisory firms to institutional holders to the drafters of Dodd-Frank, the question of whether CEO compensation is aligned with performance is a key measure of whether compensation is […]
ISS study shows board leadership structure affects CEO compensation
by Cydney Posner According to a new report from ISS, the structure of board leadership plays a significant role in relative levels of CEO compensation. Combining the CEO and board chair titles is still the most prevalent leadership structure among S&P 500 companies, with 51% of companies combined the roles […]
Where you stand on CEO comp depends on where you sit
by Cydney Posner CEO Pay, Performance, and Value Sharing, a paper by academics at the Stanford Business School, discusses the disconnect between the perceptions of CEO pay among directors (who set CEO pay) and the public (who ultimately pay it). According to the paper, two 2016 surveys, by the Rock […]
Is Section 162(m) just “a gnat on an elephant”?
by Cydney Posner According to an interesting article, “The Executive Pay Cap That Backfired,” by Allen Sloan, published in ProPublica on February 12, not only did tax code Section 162(m) not achieve its intended goal, it actually backfired – or at least led to a counter-intuitive result. But it did […]
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