CEO pay: Sky high gets even higher
A new report shows top-dog pay bites shareholders, and alleges war profiteering among some CEOs.
August 30, 2005: 12:24 PM EDT
By Jeanne Sahadi, CNN/Money senior writer
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) ? If sky-high executive pay at publicly traded companies gives you vertigo, you might want to read this sitting down.
In 2004, the ratio of average CEO pay to the average pay of a production (i.e., non-management) worker was 431-to-1, up from 301-to-1 in 2003, according to "Executive Excess," an annual report released Tuesday by the liberal research groups United for a Fair Economy and the Institute for Policy Studies.
Good news for the rich and those who worship them. But it makes me wonder. When these guys say they must offshore and cut benefits, is it really to make their companies more competitive or are they just padding their own pockets?
But before you say, "Well, the CEO provides value to his company", the article goes on to say:
From an investment standpoint, big pay for the chief is no guarantee of a big payout for the shareholder.
Between 1991 and 2004, the stock of the previous year's most highly paid CEO underperformed the S&P 500 half the time, in some instances by a stunning amount.
The most glaring example was Computer Associates. In 1999, the company paid its CEO $655 million as part of his share of a $1.1 billion stock bonus for the company's three top officers. In 2000, the stock plummeted 72 percent, while the S&P 500 fell 10 percent.
I'm also reminded of Carli Fioni, formerly of HP. Their stock tanked, tens of thousands of jobs went overseas, and she walked away with hundreds of millions of dollars.
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