Newsletter: Our Winter 2009 newsletter is out and available for download on our website here. This quarter we’ve dedicated the newsletter primarily to stock option repricings, a topic that has come charging back into the compensation world after a near decade hiatus.
White Papers: We’ve also recently published a white paper, “The Trouble With Options”, that discusses the fundamental disconnect stock options create between executive behavior and shareholder value creation. World@Work subscribers can read an abstract on the World@Work website here. Alternatively, the full paper is available here on our website.
Suggested Reading:
James Surowiecki wrote an interesting article for the New Yorker that discusses, among other things, ’sticky wages’, ‘talent hoarding’, and the productivity of the labor force.
Meanwhile, while the average hourly wage of employees increased by about 3% last year, Merrill Lynch, a company that shed nearly 80% of its shareholder’s value, managed to find a way to pay $209 million to ten of its highest paid employees. You can find details in the Wall Street Journal (subscription) or the New York Times.
And finally, the New York Times has an interactive chart that outlines the gaps that continue to exist between women and men in the same job across a number of occupations.
Exec Pay, Long-Term Incentives
Add new tag, Employee Pay, Exec Pay, Shareholder Issues
New restrictions on executive compensation have been issued by the Treasury Department in an effort
…to strike the correct balance between the need for strict monitoring and accountability on executive pay and the need for financial institutions to fully function and attract the talent pool that will maximize the chances of financial recovery and taxpayers being paid back on their investments.
US Department of Treasury (TG-15) , February 4th, 2009
Essentially, companies that receive assistance through programs that are widely available to most firms and have pre-determined terms and conditions will not be affected. The Treasury Department identified the Capital Purchase Program as one such program in which participating Read more…
Exec Pay, Shareholder Issues
Bailout, Exec Pay, Shareholder Issues
The “Say on Pay” movement may lead to shareholders having a bigger voice on the metrics and mechanisms of executive compensation and their link to company performance. There is wide support among institutional investors and shareholder advocacy groups for non-binding shareholder votes.
Recent happenings …
Presidio Pay’s thoughts …
We continue to advise our clients to provide as much transparency on their executive pay strategy and philosophy through both the proxy filing process and other communication opportunities with shareholders and employees, to the extent that it does not divulge key competitive business strategies.
While we believe the concept of “Say on Pay” has merit, our concern is that this process does not engage the Board, shareholders, and executives in a coordinated discussion on not only compensation but also its impact on overall company performance and strategy.
Exec Pay, Shareholder Issues
Exec Pay, Say On Pay, Shareholder Issues
