Average CEO pay at a dozen publicly-traded newspaper publishers fell 11.7% last year -- even as shares of those companies fell a much steeper 35.7%, blogger Alan Mutter says, in a new analysis. CEO Craig Dubow's compensation dropped 7.4%, to $7.5 million, as GCI shares plunged 35.5%, Mutter says. (I noted earlier that Gannett's stock last year turned in the industry's second-worst performance, after McClatchy, among publishers I follow.) "The incongruity in pay and stock performance occurred even though all the companies have elaborate compensation packages to incentivize their top executives to build shareholder value,'' Mutter says. "The disparity suggests some of the plans could be in for a tweaking."
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Happy days: Stocks plunge, but pay's more resilient
Average CEO pay at a dozen publicly-traded newspaper publishers fell 11.7% last year -- even as shares of those companies fell a much steeper 35.7%, blogger Alan Mutter says, in a new analysis. CEO Craig Dubow's compensation dropped 7.4%, to $7.5 million, as GCI shares plunged 35.5%, Mutter says. (I noted earlier that Gannett's stock last year turned in the industry's second-worst performance, after McClatchy, among publishers I follow.) "The incongruity in pay and stock performance occurred even though all the companies have elaborate compensation packages to incentivize their top executives to build shareholder value,'' Mutter says. "The disparity suggests some of the plans could be in for a tweaking."
3 comments:
Jim says: "Proceed with caution; this is a free-for-all comment zone. I try to correct or clarify incorrect information. But I can't catch everything. Please keep your posts focused on Gannett and media-related subjects. Note that I occasionally review comments in advance, to reject inappropriate ones. And I ignore hostile posters, and recommend you do, too."
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Check to see what the "strike price" was settled at for Dubow.
ReplyDeleteAs I recall, the incentives were set in the low '30's. So he can still cash in millions even though the stock price is well below its 52 week high.
His $7 million compensation is still rather low...when compared with other Fortune 100 firms.
The problem is CEO pay period...not just him. There is no justification...given some of the performances.
Idiots. The tweaking was fixed to favor the CEO and other execs.
ReplyDeleteThe advertising director never got the big bonus unless the Plan was made for the year.
The stock incentives for the Corporate staff always kept the pressure on to perform. It wasn't about quality journalism. It was about money. Big money.
$25 to produce an ad in India. Sounds like a good deal.
Dubow's compensation package is low compared to Fortune 100CEOs? No way. For one thing, Gannett ranks 296 on the Fortune 500 list (down from 283 the year prior).
ReplyDeleteYou'd be hard-pressed to find many Fortune 100, 200 or 500 board of directors who would grant the CEO as big a bonus as Craig's, given last year's performance.