Fred WhittleseyCannabis Compensation ConsultantsT I reside in the US, in the State of Washington where cannabis is legal. Vertical integration is prohibited, but it’s a start. We, of course, are neighbors with Canada where the legal status of cannabis is quite different and there is a lot of complexity about where companies are headquartered, the subsidiaries they have and where … Read More
“Retirement” or “Severance” and the disclosure of either or neither or both
Topic: Executive CompensationSub-Topic: Compensation Arrangements for Departing ExecutiveCompany: Arena Pharmaceuticals (ARNA) Most small companies have no retirement benefits or pensions, especially entrepreneurial cannabis companies. This follows the pattern of technology company startups over the past several decades. They frequently have severance arrangements for departing executives, and these are quite varied, from “none” to “lots” and every gradation in between Arena … Read More
Compensation Litigation in the News – 13 June 2014
Former Goldman Trader Sues to Get $20 Million in Bonuses Bloomberg News A former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) trader who helped lead the firm’s bets against subprime mortgages before the financial crisis asked a court to throw out an arbitration ruling denying him more than $20 million in unpaid compensation. Litigation Over Executive and Director Compensation Takes Another … Read More
Executive Compensation Controversy: What it Means for Equity Compensation in 2012
As we approach the 2012 proxy season – the months of March, April, and May when about 70% of public companies file their proxies for this year’s shareholder meeting – we provide an update on a number of significant developments. Over the past few months, a series of changes in proxy adviser policy, regulatory timelines, media coverage, and the political … Read More
Fixing The Executive Pay Problems, 1990-2011
Every week I receive a Giga Alert, pointing me to where I have been posted, cited, or referenced. Some of these represent a chain going back quite far. Today I received one citing an article published by Rutgers University in 1992 that mentions an editorial I wrote for the Sunday Los Angeles Times in 1990. I hadn’t read that piece, … Read More
Executive Compensation: Complex and Complicated
A photographer took a photo of a man walking down the street. When the picture printed out, only half the photo printed on one sheet and the other half on the next sheet. A journalist concluded by looking at the first half of the photo that a miracle had occurred – a man was able to walk down the street … Read More
Lots of Zeroes
It’s shareholder meeting season, and hundreds of companies released their information in proxy statements on executive pay. Many executives made tens, even hundreds, of millions of dollars last year, as the media like to count it, leading to continued concerns about excessive executive pay.Remember the caveat in my recent blog about how the media counts these numbers. A lot of … Read More
Maytag CEO Ralph Hake: The Poster Child for Whats Wrong with CEO Compensation
Rarely in this blog will you see me directly criticize an individual’s compensation arrangements but this example epitomizes why shareholders are angry about the state of CEO compensation today. It is these types of incidents that lead to generalizations about executive pay and the resulting activism, legislation, and misguided reactions. We cannot conclude that all CEO pay is wrong, or … Read More
