C-Suite Compensation Center

This Post will begin a series of blog entries focused on the topic of linking executive pay to a publicly-traded issuer's diversity and inclusion ("D&I") initiatives.  As background, there has been a recent push to hold executives accountable for the effectiveness of an issuer's D&I initiatives by linking their executive pay to the success of such initiatives.  Pretty straight forward (i.e., the success of the D&I initiative becomes one of the metrics in the issuer's performance-based compensation strategy).

On Wednesday, September 30, 2020, we will be hosting a webinar entitled "The SEC's New Human Capital Rule, Workplace Diversity and Compensation Design: Year-End Disclosures and the Board Agenda 2020".  The purpose of this webinar is to cover the SEC's new Human Capital rule and how such disclosure will interplay and impact any diversity and inclusion ("D&I") initiatives of the issuer.  In particular, the speakers will share thoughts on how top down D&I initiatives could be structured from a compensatory perspective (i.e., top down meaning D&I initiatives are incorporated into ...

The purpose of this Post is remind publicly-traded companies to revisit their stock ownership policies to determine whether a temporary waiver of the policy requirements is advisable.  This Post is Part 5 of a 7-Part series addressing compensation adjustments that Compensation Committees could consider in order to continue to incent and retain their executive officers in today’s economy.

Stock Ownership Policies Typically Denominated in Dollars

Equity ownership goals within stock ownership policies are typically denominated in shares or dollars (the latter being a fixed ...

The purpose of this Post is to highlight whether Compensation Committees should be offering retention packages to their executive officers to discourage their being poached by another company.  This Post is Part 4 of a 7-Part series addressing compensation adjustments that Compensation Committees could consider in order to continue to incent and retain their executive officers in today’s economy.

Background

Many executives are suffering from depressed realizable pay levels.  This makes sense because a performance-driven compensation model would weight most of an ...

This post is part of a 7-part series addressing compensation adjustments that Compensation Committees could consider in order to continue to incent and retain their executive officers in today’s economy.  The titles of each of the 7-parts in this series are listed at the bottom of this post.   This Part 3 is entitled “Address Outstanding Performance-Based Equity Awards," and provides some alternatives that Compensation Committees could consider with respect to outstanding performance-based equity awards that have currently unachievable performance goals.  Such alternatives include (listed in no particular order, and not an exhaustive list):

Today’s economic environment has resulted in substantial loss of value to many shareholders and executives of publicly traded companies (i.e., the latter losing substantial value in their stock holdings, and too, losing prospective realizable pay as a result of unattainable performance goals within their outstanding performance-based awards).  In most situations, the shareholders and the executives are aligned in such loss.  But a problem is that substantial loss at the executive level could increase undesired poaching and turnover of key executives at a time when executives should be focused on navigating the company through a reopening of the United States economy.  To overcome this problem, compensation committees of publicly traded companies ("Compensation Committees") will likely need to consider adjustments to the company’s compensation framework in order to continue to incent and retain executives.  To that end, this Part 1 (of a 7-part series) provides thoughts that the Compensation Committee should consider with respect to upcoming equity grants.

Join us on April 9, 2020 from 10:00 am to 11:00 am Central for our FREE monthly webinar on "Executive Compensation Considerations in Light of Market Volatility, Stock Prices and the Unknown," where we will discuss compensatory issues to consider as a result of failed (or failing) performance-based compensation metrics and lost value to the issuer's long-term shareholders, including:

• Considerations with respect to annual incentives for 2020;
• Thoughts with respect to outstanding performance-based equity awards where the performance conditions are not likely to be attained ...

Many publicly-traded issuers in today’s environment have outstanding equity awards with performance goals that are unlikely to be achieved.  In response, Compensation Committees of such issuers will need to strike a balance between incentivizing/retaining executives and dealing with the stark reality that shareholders have lost substantial value.  To that end, Compensation Committees are likely to discuss whether it makes sense to revise performance metrics for outstanding equity awards.  The purpose of this Post is to highlight that revising performance metrics of ...

Keeping with this evening's Halloween spirit, members of Board of Directors and Compensation Committees should be aware of an allegation that is currently floating within the ominous fog - that some executives of publicly-traded issuers are trick-or-treating with "ghost revenue."  Kidding aside, the allegation (or potential allegation) is that some executive officers are using ghost revenue (i.e., deferred revenue) in order to satisfy otherwise unattainable non-GAAP performance metrics.  A grossly-oversimplified explanation of this issue is addressed in the below portions of this post.

Just a quick note that late last week ISS made available for public comment nine discreet voting policies for potential application in 2019.   Only one of the draft voting policies addresses compensation, and it addresses the Financial Performance Assessment Methodology under the Pay-for-Performance Model.

Tomorrow I am speaking on "Trends in Designing Performance-Based Equity Awards" at the HC&B Total Rewards Summit in Houston, Texas.  Discussion points include: (i) applicable forms of equity incentives conducive to performance-based awards, (ii) the more common performance metrics used to drive behavior, (iii) typical payout levels and performance periods, (iv) total shareholder return formulas, (v) administrative issues associated with accelerated vesting provisions upon retirement, (vi) maximizing capital gains with 83(b) elections, and (vii) recent revisions to ...