SharkJumping

Gretchen Morgenson of the NYT today (unfortunately behind subscription wall here) has a pointed critique of the recently released Business Roundtable report on Executive Pay (download it here).  With key data produced by so-called executive compensation "expert" Frederic Cook, the study states that growth in median total CEO compensation over the last 11 years was right in line with growth in company's capitalizations and in total shareholder returns - it is breathlessly reported on the Business Roundtable site as "Setting the Record Straight on Executive Compensation".

Seeing as this conclusion flies in the face of all common sense based on every trend in the last 10 years, Morgenson points out the obvious flaws in the reports conclusion, primarily that the report's definition of executive compensation does NOT include the following:

1. Money Made from Stock Option Grant Exercises
2. Money Made from Restricted Stock Sales
3. Pension Benefits
4. Deferred Compensation
5. Severance Packages
6. Dividends on CEO Restricted Stock (but includes them in shareholder returns)

BTW:  in many cases, those excluded categories make up over 50% of a CEO's compensation, so these are not minor exclusions.

When Cook is asked by Morgenson about these seemingly large holes in the report's conclusions, he apparently admitted that their exclusion made for an Apples to Oranges comparison, but that since he couldn't find that information in all cases, he decided not to include it, or because the information didn't fit neatly into the years studied, such as the stock option part - Huh?

This report is a joke, so I hope Cook was well paid by the Business Roundtable to produce it.  It's too easy to point out the obvious conflict of interest in the organization which funded the report, with key members such as current Home Depot CEO excessive compensation poster boy Robert Nardelli (see earlier blog here about the breakdown of his stupendous pay package, which would appear much lower if we excluded over half of the pay categories, as Cook does). 

I would feel better if the CEO's and their equally complicit Boards would actually be real men and just come out and say they deserved that much money, and if shareholders don't like it, they can sell the stock (a VC friend of mine is in favor of such a disclosure-based approach).  But none of them have the cajones to actually do that since there really is no good way to defend such piggish pay packages, so they end up funding disingenuous reports so they can hide behind them. 

It's embarrassing, and there is a growing possibility of an actual public backlash against the compensation excesses of this generation, which would be bad for business in general since it might limit the ability of true risk takers, such as Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, to get fairly paid for their risk in starting companies.