How Much Are CEOs Really Making? Introducing the CEO Wealth Tracker™
Dear Friend,
There is always a lot of focus on CEO pay, but never more so than during difficult periods when shareholders, employees and the broader public are feeling the effect of corporate cutbacks. In these times, people are interested in seeing how executives are sharing the pain. But focusing just on their pay during any given year misses the big picture of how an executive’s fortunes are really tied to those of their firm. For many CEOs, a large part of their overall personal wealth is tied to the market value of their company. How much has their wealth changed over this period?
Farient now answers that question through our new CEO Wealth Tracker™. This tool highlights the level and change in the value of CEO shares in the companies they lead. It tracks this information for the Russell 3000 in real time, including what each CEO made (or lost) in the last year, month or week, and the degree to which those changes were due to movements in the stock price versus being due to net new shares acquired (or sold), all in a sortable table.
Finally, I wanted to thank the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) for naming me to their prestigious Directorship 100, a list of leading influencers on boardroom practice. It’s an honor to be included.
Sincerely,
Marc Hodak
Hot Off The Press From Farient
The Most Important Dimension of Alignment
As most CEOs’ pay is linked in large part to share value, their actual compensation can fluctuate wildly – whether up or down – compared to their official base salary. In this article, I delve into why CEO wealth is more relevant than salary, how linking compensation to performance improves alignment and when there can be too much of a link between pay and share value.
Average CEO Earnings Soared to $21.3 Million Last Year and Could Rise Again in 2020 Despite the Coronavirus Recession
Average CEO earnings rose dramatically last year, primarily due to the improvement of market performance before the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis and the impact on CEO pay that comes in the form of compensation based on share price. In the Washington Post, experts including Farient CEO Robin Ferracone discuss what they expect for the coming year, in somewhat different economic circumstances.
Elon Musk $13 Billion Richer In One Week As Tesla Stock Rises Ahead Of “Battery Day”
When Elon Musk announced earlier this month that he would have big news about Tesla’s latest innovations on September 22 – which he termed “Battery Day – the electric carmaker’s shares rose immensely within the week, translating into a $13 billion weekly gain for Musk, and succinctly demonstrating the connection between CEO wealth and share price.
Zoom CEO’s Wealth Jumps by $5.2 Billion Following Surge in Quarterly Revenue
With the COVID-19 pandemic causing a “work-from-home” boom, the revenue of video conferencing company Zoom has surged – and so has its share price. In an era when many CEOs’ compensation is linked more to company shares than to actual salary or bonuses, that has meant one thing for Zoom’s chief executive: a massive and sudden rise in total wealth.
Join Farient CEO Robin Ferracone on November 10 from 1-2:15 pm EST for her session, “Expert Insights: Compensation Hot Topics,” as part of this year’s virtual NACD Summit. In this session, participants will look at evolving issues of executive and director compensation that include current challenges and trends, how a committee should develop its principles for making executive compensation decisions, considerations when determining CEO pay, including pay for performance, and how the stock market is informing pay when business performance might differ. Ask your questions in advance by submitting them here.
Marc Hodak is a Partner at Farient Advisors with more than 20 years of experience as a compensation and corporate governance consultant. He has developed executive and board compensation programs for global companies, both private and public including extensive work around goal setting, performance and perverse incentives. Learn more about Marc.
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