Sunday, June 30, 2013
Shit rolls downhill but money rolls uphill.
Earlier this year the NY Times did a survey of executive compensation. Now that reporting season is over for most corporations, the have followed up on that survey with the larger available data. What they found was that it is better to be king than previously thought. And it is no loss to be Hand of the King either.
WHEN we made our annual foray into the executive pay gold mine in April, chief executives’ earnings for 2012 showed what appeared to be muted growth on the year. The $14 million in median overall compensation received by the top 100 C.E.O.’s was just a 2.8 percent increase over 2011, the figures showed.And most of them really have no idea how to properly run their companies, they just landed their asses in a tub of butter.
Well, what a difference a few months and a larger pool of C.E.O.’s make. According to an updated analysis, the top 200 chief executives at public companies with at least $1 billion in revenue actually got a big raise last year, over all. The research, conducted for Sunday Business by Equilar Inc., the executive compensation analysis firm, found that the median 2012 pay package came in at $15.1 million — a leap of 16 percent from 2011.
So much for the idea that shareholders were finally getting through to corporate boards on the topic of reining in pay.
At least the stock market returns generated by these companies last year exceeded the pay increases awarded to their chiefs. Still, at 19 percent in 2012, that median return was only three percentage points higher than the pay raise.
In other words, it’s still good to be king.
Because the data shows only chief executives’ pay, it does not reveal how good it still is to be a prince. Brian Foley, an independent compensation consultant in White Plains, pointed out that the 2012 compensation of the No. 2 executives at some of these companies would have vaulted them to the top ranks on the C.E.O. roster.
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