CEO pay rankings are based on a document that public companies such as Gannett file once a year with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. It's called a shareholder's proxy report. (The formal name is a Form 14A.) The report includes all sorts of interesting information, including items to vote on like the election of board members. But much of it is devoted to what top officers got in base pay, bonuses and stock-based compensation.
Gannett filed its last proxy on March 15, 2007, showing information for 2006. (Here are the proxies going back to 1997.) Any day now, the company will file its report for calendar year 2007, revealing how much the board paid CEO Craig Dubow (left), retiring Newspaper Division President Sue Clark-Johnson and other big cheeses. Dubow was paid an estimated $8.2 million in 2006, the last proxy showed -- although that figure is misleading. It includes all sorts of assumptions and forecasts about Gannett's future stock price that may or may not come true. Still, it's a useful yardstick.What I'm wondering: Did the board give Dubow or any of his top lieutenants a bonus last year -- a year when Gannett shares performed worse than every other major newspaper publisher but McClatchy? We'll soon see.
It will be interesting to see if any of the executive management dumped their worthless Gannett stock. I just took a look at my 401k performance, which I still have from when I worked for a Gannett paper, and GCI is the biggest loser in my investments. Avg.total return for the last year-to-date: -34.5%. And 3-year return: -21%.Thanks, business geniuses. I thought I opted out of purchasing the stock when I got hired, but somehow it's in my portfolio.
ReplyDeleteThere was a day when every Gannett employee received a copy of the annual report through the mail at their home address. Today, if they want to read it they have to do so online ... and the file is so big it would choke a horse-sized computer and take down a few trees if you wanted to print it.
ReplyDeleteIt used to be sickening, when I was earning $24,000 at a small Gannett daily, to read that the people at the top were taking home millions and also had stock options and other benefits we at the bottom could only dream of.
Apparently, it's only gotten better at the top. Not so, for those still laboring at the bottom.
to find out how your pay compares to dubow's (or how his ranks among ceos of other companies) go to www.aflcio./org/corporatewatch;paywatch.
ReplyDeletethere,you'll find that:
In 2006, Craig A. Dubow raked in $8,150,444 in total compensation according to the SEC. However, according to the AFL-CIO's calculation method*, he raked in $9,908,649 in total 2006 compensation.
when i input my salary and 401k company match to compare to his, it told me:
How You Compare to Your CEO
Craig A. Dubow's compensation could support 125 workers earning your salary, using the SEC Total*. Craig A. Dubow's compensation could support 152 workers earning your salary, using the AFL-CIO Total*.
You would have to work 125 years to equal Craig A. Dubow's 2006 compensation, using the SEC Total. You would have to work 152 years, according to the AFL-CIO Total.
another click (on how other workers compare to your ceo) told me that by the sec method, dubow's pay would equal that of any of the following:
5 Nobel prize winners
21 average university presidents
20 U.S. presidents
32 AFL-CIO presidents
48 Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
276 average workers
669 minimum-wage earners
(there are three other tables on that page w/similar comparisons)
and while the stock has gone from trading at $90 in january of '04, it's now at about 1/3 that.
considering how many people have been outsourced, laid off, forced out, fired on dubious grounds (resulting in at least two lawsuits), and just plain fled, and not been replaced, my gannett site alone could account for about 20% of the average-worker pay needed to fatten dubow's bank account.
Couple things. About dumping company stock, that would be interesting to see, but I can't see how it would happen because in the proxy it says executives have to own hundreds of thousands of dollars of stock. So I would guess that if that's the case, their company stock portfolio has to be hurt since the stock price has dropped.
ReplyDeleteThey get 25% of their bonus in stock, it says in the proxy, so if they have to hold it, they are way down in that area too. I mean, if they got a $100,000 bonus, and $25,0000 was mandated in stock, they already have less than they thought they did. Ugh.
As for Dubow and his bonus, my guess is his compensation is way down because his options are worthless and his other stock down. If he gets a bonus, so what, he's still making way less than last year, and way less than his predecessor.
As for the prior comment, what's your point? There should be no CEO? The CEO should be in the union?
I am out for as much as I can get, and while I may never earn as much as Dubow or a publisher, that doesn't mean they don't work hard. I know my publisher is around all kinds of hours.
i posted the pay comparison. my point was that, while the stock is dropping and people are being shed like fall leaves, the people who made the past bad decisions -- and who are making the present bad decisions -- are feeling far less pain than we who are left in the trenches, trying to do more and more with less and less.
ReplyDelete