Retail Industry CEO Compensation: Will Obama Have a Say On Largest Paychecks for Top American Retail Executives Too?
Thursday February 5, 2009
President Obama may have picked the biggest fight of his first 100 days when he dared to challenge the compensation of some of the biggest CEO bullies on American corporate schoolyards. While the huge paychecks of banking, automakers, and Wall Street executives have been the target of Obama's wrath, should the top American retail industry executives be scrutinized as well?
So far the list of 2008 compensation for the CEOs of top retail organizations shows that the paychecks for retail industry CEOs ranged from $30.6 million to $1.00, according to Salary.com. Before even knowing the players involved, one has to question if there's any kind of accounting calculations that can justify multimillion dollar compensation packages in a year that has been characterized as the most dismal for the retail industry since the Great Depression.
Robert Iger of the Walt Disney Company had the biggest paychecks to cash in 2008, with $30.6 million worth of salary, bonuses, stocks, and options. (Actually some estimate this figure to be $51.1 million, but the official filing with the SEC is the more modest $30.6 million figure.) This is an 11% increase over the $27.7 million compensation package Iger received in FY 2007.
One might wonder why Robert Iger is on a list of retail CEOs at all. This is a logical question since in the same year that Iger was trying to figure out what to do with his $30.6 million, approximately 100 Disney Store operations were being closed, which added hundreds of Disney Store retail employees to the tally of retail layoffs without any paycheck at all. (Yes, there's a piece of this story line that involves Children's Place, but that's not really the point.) Currently The Walt Disney Co. owns and operates 200 or so Disney Stores, so Iger gets to claim the top spot on the retail CEO compensation list.
To Iger's credit, he did refuse to take an additional $2.4 million that was due to him because Disney stock outperformed the S&P 500 Index. Disney's stock fell 6% in 2008, while the S&P Index nosedived 18%. So, theoretically, if Disney's stock prices had fallen 17.99% last year, Iger would have been entitled to $2.4 million for that "victory."
This kind of questionable deal structuring is what allows American corporate executives to float out of massive failures with incomprehensible golden parachutes. These are the kinds of inequities that consumers have been seeing in the executive ranks of corporate America for many years, but were powerless to confront or change.
This is the injustice that President Obama is challenging, and the polls are showing that American consumers are glad that he's taking this rock star CEO mentality to task.
So far the list of 2008 compensation for the CEOs of top retail organizations shows that the paychecks for retail industry CEOs ranged from $30.6 million to $1.00, according to Salary.com. Before even knowing the players involved, one has to question if there's any kind of accounting calculations that can justify multimillion dollar compensation packages in a year that has been characterized as the most dismal for the retail industry since the Great Depression.
Robert Iger of the Walt Disney Company had the biggest paychecks to cash in 2008, with $30.6 million worth of salary, bonuses, stocks, and options. (Actually some estimate this figure to be $51.1 million, but the official filing with the SEC is the more modest $30.6 million figure.) This is an 11% increase over the $27.7 million compensation package Iger received in FY 2007.
One might wonder why Robert Iger is on a list of retail CEOs at all. This is a logical question since in the same year that Iger was trying to figure out what to do with his $30.6 million, approximately 100 Disney Store operations were being closed, which added hundreds of Disney Store retail employees to the tally of retail layoffs without any paycheck at all. (Yes, there's a piece of this story line that involves Children's Place, but that's not really the point.) Currently The Walt Disney Co. owns and operates 200 or so Disney Stores, so Iger gets to claim the top spot on the retail CEO compensation list.
To Iger's credit, he did refuse to take an additional $2.4 million that was due to him because Disney stock outperformed the S&P 500 Index. Disney's stock fell 6% in 2008, while the S&P Index nosedived 18%. So, theoretically, if Disney's stock prices had fallen 17.99% last year, Iger would have been entitled to $2.4 million for that "victory."
This kind of questionable deal structuring is what allows American corporate executives to float out of massive failures with incomprehensible golden parachutes. These are the kinds of inequities that consumers have been seeing in the executive ranks of corporate America for many years, but were powerless to confront or change.
This is the injustice that President Obama is challenging, and the polls are showing that American consumers are glad that he's taking this rock star CEO mentality to task.
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