Upfront CEO Pay Growing, Study Says

[Rose Siding]

Executives don't need golden parachutes when they arrive with golden hellos.

One reason executive pay has soared in recent years is that compensation deals are getting more lucrative at the front end, with fat signing bonuses and initial grants of stock, according to a study released Friday by Corporate Library, a pro-investor research firm.

That allows some chief executives to bank large sums of money before they've proved themselves on the job, the firm said. And if things don't work out, companies must still pay failed executives a millionaire's ransom to go away.

The Corporate Library study identified "front-loaded" compensation plans as one of the practices that is undermining efforts to tie executive pay to corporate performance.

Over a five-year period, 11 companies listed as worst offenders paid their CEOs a combined $865 million — while they presided over a $640-billion decline in shareholder value, the report said.........

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-execpay1apr01,0,5338349.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[CrispyQ]

1. This is wrong on so many levels.

I feel sick.

[WhiteTara]

2. There are endless ways to fleece the sheeple

and they are pulling out the stops and using every one. Greed should be the crime and the punishment should be death. Our planet can no longer support the Washashisu (sp)fat eaters. The blood of others fills their bank accounts. Just as Samoza set up clinics and forced his people to let their blood for his profit, our leaders set up corporations to suck our souls for theirs. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH When will we say "No More"? :rant:

[Cassandra]

3. This is one big reason why...

I'm not really interested in being in the stock market any more. I'm not interested in my money going to enrich the top management at the expense of the company and hence, the employees and their communities.

[cantstandbush]

4. Stockholders are the problem as I said before. They don't vote, they don'

care until someone is caught in a scandal. Stokholders of boards should stop approving this shit. I haven't seen a CEO position that was worth a shit in my life. Companies run on good products and services and the workers and good middle management. Any company can survive without a CEO and most of them should it would save at least 10 million for any company that has a CEO with chute. It's all bullshit. Common sense, honesty, integrity, critical thinking ability, and business management sense is what it takes and most CEOs operate on automatic, traveling around giving speeches of projections composed and written by lower level staffers. It's all bullshit. the bullshit in the private sector rivals the bullshit in government.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

5. But some poor Mexican making $5/hr w/ no bennies is "the enemy." (n/t)

[prolesunited]

9. That's my argument exactly

In fact, I was making that point to a co-worker today -- not that I think she heard me.

[Doremus]

10. Heh. Why should they be any different than poor Americans earning $5/hr?

:sarcasm:

[lovuian]

6. This is making America CEO's into kings of their kingdoms

and the rest of us are serfs...This isn't a viable system...

[truthisfreedom]

7. worst. idea. ever. why not pay the workers the same way, and then send

them home? friggin' idiot corporations.

[Yupster]

8. It's because companies are having to expense

their stock options today. So instead they're giving fewer options and more money upfront.

It's a complete circle from the late seventies where people complained the CEO's were making too much while their companies lost money. So companies greatly reduced CEO pay but gave tremendous incentives in the form of stock options. When the company stocks did real well in the late nineties the CEO's cashed in on the options and people complained about the options being a hidden huge liability to the company. So now the companies are reducing the options and going back to the giant upfront pay.

The more things change ...