Executive Pay
Mike Armstrong, Inquirer Columnist
This will be a busy week for annual shareholder meetings in the region.
Tasty Baking Co. kicks it off today with an annual meeting, not at its new headquarters in the Navy Yard in South Philadelphia, but at the Union League of Philadelphia at 11 a.m.
There’s nothing at all controversial on the Tastykake maker’s proxy ballot. Elections of directors are practically automatic. However, president and CEO Charles P. Pizzi is up for election as a director. With Pizzi in his seventh year as CEO and the company’s stock price down 46 percent during his tenure, it’ll be interesting to see if shareholders send any message with their votes.
Mike Armstrong, Inquirer Columnist
An update on one of the many “say on pay” votes by shareholders on the compensation of corporate executives.
Verizon Communications Inc. shareholders voted 90 percent in favor of the “overall executive pay-for-performance compensation policies and procedures” at the phone company’s annual meeting Thursday in Louisville, Ky.
Unlike other annual meetings this spring where shareholders have been seeking to win what’s called a “say on pay,” Verizon shareholders actually had their first opportunity to vote on the company’s executive compensation practices.
Mike Armstrong, Inquirer Columnist
DuPont Co. shareholders will be asked to vote on only one stockholder-sponsored resolution today compared with five last year.
The chemical giant will once again hold its annual meeting at the DuPont Theatre, 1007 Market St., Wilmington, at 10:30 a.m.
The lone shareholder resolution seeks to give shareholders a “say on pay” on how DuPont compensates its top management. A similar measure in last year’s proxy statement did not pass.
Mike Armstrong, Inquirer Columnist
A few days after hiring its new CEO, Charming Shoppes Inc. has disclosed what it’s paying James Fogarty.
And while the pay isn’t outlandish by AIG or Merrill Lynch standards, it’s clear that it still takes a lot of financial inducement to attract a CEO, even in a lousy economy.
In fact, while Fogarty’s compensation package would appear to be less than Charming Shoppes’ last CEO, Dorrit J. Bern, it would be a stretch to call him a bargain.
Mike Armstrong, Inquirer Columnist
After the tech stock bubble burst in 2000, lots of companies were blasted for repricing stock options awarded to their employees.
Care to guess what’s going on now?
Research firm Equilar Inc. told Bloomberg News that 114 companies, including Google and Intel, have proposed or completed plans to permit exchanges of “underwater” options since early 2008.
Mike Armstrong, Inquirer Columnist
At least 100 public companies will face shareholder proposals on executive compensation this spring, according to a shareholder advocacy group.
The Social Investment Forum posted a list of the 100 companies here. The local companies facing such "say-on-pay" votes are: Charming Shoppes, Comcast and DuPont. Other companies with large local operations include: Boeing, Johnson & Johnson, Lockheed Martin and Merck & Co., as well as banks Wachovia/Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Citigroup.
Here's what the "say-on-pay" vote supporters want: a management-sponsored, non-binding advisory vote on executive compensation presented in the annual proxy statement. Investors who back "say-on-pay" resolutions include labor unions, asset managers, public pension funds, foundations and religious organizations.
Mike Armstrong, Inquirer Columnist
With companies slashing jobs, how about some sign that they’re also cutting executive pay?
Kulicke & Soffa Industries Inc. did just that last week.
The Fort Washington maker of semiconductor-assembly equipment said in a regulatory filing that CEO C. Scott Kulicke would take a 20 percent cut in his base salary starting in February. That will cost him $110,000 of his $550,000 salary.
Mike Armstrong, Inquirer Columnist
There are those in the corporate world who simply can’t imagine why someone would ask CEOs to take less money home.
After all, when a company is struggling, the CEO needs to make tough decisions to turn things around. When a company is growing rapidly and profitably, he or she has to manage that growth. That’s why CEOs get paid the big bucks.
But in this dismal economic environment, CEOs need to show true leadership by sharing the pain many of their employees are feeling.
Mike Armstrong, Inquirer Columnist
Recipe for debate over executive compensation:
Take an intractable credit crisis. Add mounting bank failures and the extinction of the independent Wall Street investment bank. Slowly mix in a recession. Pour in massive amounts of corporate bailouts. And deep fry in a $50 billion fraud perpetrated by a once-respected money manager.
There are those in the corporate world who simply can't imagine why someone would ask CEOs to take less money home. And while I'm clearly in the camp that people should be free to earn whatever they can, this is the year that CEOs need to show true leadership by sharing the pain many of their employees are feeling.
Mike Armstrong, Inquirer Columnist
Like other money-losing drug development companies, Hemispherx Biopharma Inc. is now in cash-conservation mode.
The Philadelphia pharmaceutical company today said it would try a number of measures to reduce corporate expenses. Hemispherx is the company that had been unable to reach a quorum to hold its annual shareholders meeting earlier this fall.
One step it will take is to require senior staff to be paid as much as 50 percent of their compensation in restricted stock, starting no later than Jan. 1.
Mike Armstrong blogs about Philadelphia corporations and business-related topics. Contact him at 215-854-2980.
Reach Mike at marmstrong@phillynews.com.
