Average Fortune 500 CEO Annual Pay Now > $15 Million. A YEAR. “A Walmart employee earning the company’s median salary of $19,177 would have to work for more than a thousand years to earn the $22.2 million that Doug McMillon, the company’s chief executive, was awarded in 2017.” –“Want to Make Money Like a C.E.O.? Work...Read More
WSJ Obituary: “RJR chief’s exploits helped push boards to be more vigilant” “F. Ross Johnson is mainly remembered for the fleet of corporate jets that ferried him to celebrity golf events and other luxurious perks he awarded himself as CEO of RJR Nabisco Inc. . . . Yet the Canadian-born executive may have done some...Read More
But, Is It Big Enough to Hold All That Cash?? If I had to pick a single image that symbolized the breathtaking (and grotesque) leap in executive compensation at major corporations the last quarter-century or so, I might have gone with the Burj Khalifa (world’s tallest building), or perhaps an especially lavish Fourth of July...Read More
Risk Without Return, Pay for Non-Performance An out-of-town visitor was being shown the wonders of the New York financial district. When the party arrived at the Battery, one of his guides indicated some handsome ships riding at anchor. He said, “Look, those are the bankers’ and brokers’ yachts.” “Where are the customers’ yachts?” asked the...Read More
Making the Janitor’s Annual Salary . . . Every 3 Hours! The inimitable (and frequently bombastic) Barry Ritholtz, author of The Big Picture blog, has a great post today dissecting absurd CEO compensation titled “American Pastime: Overpaying CEO’s.” His piece basically picks up where my post last Thursday (“Parsing Occidental CEO Ray Irani’s ‘Excellent Performance'”)...Read More
Obscene Exec Pay: Exhibit A In a year when pay for chief executives overall fell, Ray R. Irani came out on top. The longtime head of Occidental Petroleum was awarded total compensation of $52.2 million, up from $49.9 million in 2008. The oil company’s directors believe in “excellent pay for excellent performance,” and Mr. Irani’s...Read More
