May 18, 2020

Los Angeles Times – CEOs cut millions of jobs amid coronavirus yet keep their lofty bonuses

So far, top executives of many major U.S. corporations — including some at the very epicenter of the crisis — have mostly held on to their outsize pay packages after giving up some of their salaries.

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May 18, 2020

Financial Times – Coronavirus puts top executives’ pay in the spotlight

Many companies had already awarded shares and bonuses to executives in January and February, before the pandemic set in.

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May 15, 2020

Agenda – Boards Face ‘Real Distaste’ on Pay Discretion

Performance goals set early this year by the boards of calendar-year companies may be largely irrelevant since the Covid-19 pandemic set the stock market spiraling and companies scrambling. As a result, boards may find it difficult to motivate and retain some executives, compensation consultants and attorneys warn.

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May 15, 2020

Life Annuity Specialist – Ameriprise CEO Took Home Sweetest Pay Package Last Year

Ameriprise Financial CEO James Cracchiolo, who helped push the company further into more profitable life and annuity products last year, was rewarded as the industry’s top-earning CEO, according to proxy filings. Cracchiolo’s compensation was $24.5 million in 2019, down almost 5%. The company’s share price surged almost 60% over that period, about twice as much as the S&P 500 Index.

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May 15, 2020

Agenda – Boards Risk Being ‘Tone Deaf’ on Director Comp

As proxy season approaches its climax next week, few boards have made decisions about how to approach equity grants that will be awarded to directors in conjunction with annual meeting dates. However, compensation consultants are warning about a failure to address the misalignment between the number of shares awarded to executives at the start of the year before the crisis impacted stock prices with the grants that will be made to directors in the coming weeks.

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