News about executive pay, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times.

Chronology of Coverage

Mar. 12, 2015

New York State Comptroller Thomas P DiNapoli releases report that shows average bonus for employees on Wall Street grew 2 percent in 2014, to $172,860, far slower pace of growth than in previous two years; figure shows that Wall Street still faces numerous challenges. MORE

Feb. 14, 2015

NFL releases tax filing showing that Commissioner Roger Goodell was paid $35 million in 2013, placing him among America’s highest-paid chief executives. MORE

Blockbuster divorce of oil billionaire Harold G Hamm, in which he is seeking to reduce his roughly $974 million settlement agreement, has raised interesting questions amid debate about whether executives owe their fortunes to skill or luck; Hamm’s lawyers sought to exploit obscure element of divorce law by arguing that his wealth came from forces outside his control, like global oil prices, expertise of his deputies, and technology. MORE

Chief executives of successful companies may deserve handsome pay packages, but how do you value the contribution of the average worker? MORE

Walt Disney Co discloses that it paid chief executive and chairman Robert A Iger $46.5 million overall in fiscal 2014, up 35 percent from $34.3 million in 2013; Iger’s compensation is largely tied to company’s financial performance. MORE

Chronicle of Higher Education annual pay survey shows Shirley Ann Jackson, president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, was nation’s highest-paid president of a private college in 2012 with total compensation of $7,143,312. MORE

Microsoft shareholders approve $84 million pay package for new chief executive Satya Nadella despite concerns raised by investor advisory group Institutional Shareholder Services. MORE

Sony discloses additional aspects of breach of its computer systems, including leaking of internal documents containing pre-bonus annual salaries of several senior executives; breach has security experts and law enforcement authorities rattled, worried that Sony’s difficulties may be indication that more such attacks are imminent. MORE

Coca-Cola announces changes to executive compensation plan after facing sharp shareholder criticism. MORE

Special inspector general report finds that top executives at General Motors and Ally Financial, both of which received bailouts from Treasury Dept, were paid excessively even as taxpayers lost money; report criticizes Treasury for loosening its own restriction on executive pay for GM and Ally year after year. MORE

Coke’s assurance of support for a new compensation plan failed to account for opposition by three of the company’s six largest shareholders. MORE

Joe Nocera Op-Ed column criticizes Prof Randal S Thomas and Prof R Lawrence Van Horn study concluding that college football coaches are not overpaid because their jobs are similar to those of chief executives; says coaches resemble CEOs only in that they are overpaid; says high coach salaries at time of elevated tuition and negative athletic program revenues point to skewed values. MORE

Dr Herbert Pardes, three years after retiring as president and chief executive of New York-Presbyterian Hospital, is still employed by the hospital, earning millions as executive vice chairman of its board of trustees; compensation experts say that position is rare in nonprofit world, though much more common in for-profit companies; executive compensation for hospitals has been matter of debate across country for several years. MORE

Annual list of top 200 highest-paid chief executives in the United States includes just 11 women, raising significant questions about the lack of women at the pinnacle of corporate America; median pay for women on list is $15.7 million, $1.6 million less than median for men. MORE

Executive Pay Report; list of 200 most highly paid chief executives in 2013, tracked by Equilar, yields average compensation of $20.7 million, up 6 percent from previous year; some packages remain enormous, but growth has been slowed as executive compensation boards become more independent and tie pay to results; list is topped by Charif Souki of Cheniere Energy, who earned $141.9 million. MORE

Editorial criticizes increasing tendency among nation’s public colleges and universities to raise pay of top administrators while also hiking tuition, shrinking course offerings and lowering faculty pay; cites Institute for Policy Studies report showing that the 25 public universities with the highest compensation for presidents have increased those salaries dramatically since 2008; holds that trend is indicative of larger problems in education. MORE

Regulatory documents reveal that Target’s former chief executive Gregg W Steinhafel received $13 million in compensation in his last year at company’s helm, down from $20 million year before; filings indicate that significant reduction in his pay package resulted from shareholders’ complaints. MORE

Report by Institute for Policy Studies finds that at 25 public universities with highest-paid presidents, both student debt and use of part-time adjunct faculty grew far faster than at average state university from 2005 to 2012. MORE

News analysis; analysis of base pay of insurance executives, hospital executives and even hospital administrators shows that they are often paid more than doctors; proliferation of high earners in the medical business and administration ranks adds to United States’ $3.7 trillion health care bill and stands in stark contrast with other developed countries. MORE

Controversy over firing of Jill Abramson, former executive editor of The New York Times, continues as company’s chief executive Mark Thompson sends letter to senior editors in effort to further address reasons for her dismissal; Thompson reasserts paper’s position that rumored compensation issues played no rule in Abramson’s departure. MORE

New York Times Company finds itself having to reassure employees and rebut reports that dismissal of Jill Abramson, The Times’s first female executive editor, was related to her complaints about receiving less pay than her male predecessors. MORE

Chipotle’s pay packages and unusual co-chief executive arrangement are drawing scrutiny from investors who will vote on two measures at the annual meeting related to executive compensation. MORE

Sony’s top executives will return their annual bonuses as company’s electronics business struggles with losses. MORE

Gretchen Morgenson Fair Game column examines accounting adjustments that have allowed Walmart to increase incentive pay for some executives despite declining sales growth and poor returns for shareholders; notes that adjustments were even more liberal in 2014 than in previous years. MORE

The 25 highest-earning hedge fund managers in the United States took home a total of $21.15 billion in compensation in 2013, according to an annual ranking. MORE

Joe Nocera Op-Ed column analyzes Warren Buffett’s defense of his decision to abstain from voting his conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway’s 400 million shares against Coca-Cola’s equity compensation plan, despite being an outspoken critic of excessive pay; argues comments only deepen sense that Buffett acted in a cowardly and hypocritical way. MORE

Joe Nocera Op-Ed column condemns Warren E Buffett, largest shareholder at Coca-Cola, for his refusal to criticize excessive executive compensation plan proposed by company; says Buffett’s inaction contradicts his previous assertions that institutional investors should speak out to discourage such practices; holds Buffett has blown opportunity to show that directors may disagree with compensation plan while remaining supportive of company. MORE

Joe Nocera Op-Ed column examines how executive compensation has continued to spiral out of control despite decades of efforts to rein it in; holds there is little reason to believe that new disclosure requirements to be instituted under the Dodd-Frank financial reform law will be any more effective. MORE

Compensation of corporate chief executives, up again in 2013, is drawing ever more scorn as an engine of income inequality; median compensation has risen to $13.9 million, up 9 percent from 2012; chart shows 50 highest-paid chief executives in American business. MORE

Gretchen Morgenson Fair Game column holds that pay metrics across the corporate world have created inflated salaries while doing little to motivate executives to create shareholder value. MORE

Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison again emerges as highest-paid CEO in corporate America, earning $78.4 million in 2013; Ellison is known for evincing an openly self-interested attitude, unusual quality amid the humanitarian claims of other Silicon Valley leaders. MORE

Gretchen Morgensen Fair Game column notes that executives responsible for debacle at General Motors are unlikely to have to disgorge past bonuses, even as shareholders shoulder burden of recall; holds that compensation rules need to be changed across the corporate world in order to enable clawback policies. MORE

Securities and Exchange Commission filing says J C Penney could raise reinstalled chief executive Myron E Ullman’s 2014 base salary to $1.5 million for this year; he could also get $5.5 million in stock awards and is eligible to receive a $3 million bonus. MORE

A money manager claims Coca-Cola allocated as much as $24 billion toward stock-based rewards for its senior people. MORE

James B Stewart Common Sense column; Virginia Rometty, chief executive of IBM, and Antony Jenkins, chief of Barclays, turned down their 2013 annual bonuses, mostly as a symbolic gesture to account for their companies’ poor performance, but that raises question of why they were receiving bonuses in the first place; asserts that even if refusing bonuses becomes a trend, it does not solve larger problem that many chief executives are overpaid. MORE

N Gregory Mankiw Economic View column contends that lost in inequality debate is fact that top 1 percent of earners often create extraordinary things, and at great risk; notes in most cases top one-tenth of percent, those earning more than $2.7 million, advance the public good, in part by paying 33.8 percent of their income in federal taxes. MORE

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell was paid $44.2 million in 2012, making him among the best-paid executives in the country and perhaps the highest-paid leader of a nonprofit organization; amount, including deferred bonus and pension payment of $9.1 million, represents 50 percent increase from 2011. MORE

General Motors says chief executive Mary T Barra will earn as much as $14.4 million in compensation during her first year on job; releases her compensation figures two months early to refute accusations that she was being paid less than her male predecessor, Daniel F Akerson, who made about $9 million in 2013. MORE

Op-Ed article by author Douglas K Smith proposes setting a maximum wage for government officials and top-paid government contractors; contends such a limit would lead to more efficient and effective pricing and services from companies. MORE

James B Stewart Common Sense column on decision by JPMorgan Chase’s board to award chief executive Jamie Dimon compensation of $20 million, or 74 percent raise, for year in which bank narrowly escaped criminal guilty plea and paid more than $20 billion in regulatory fines and penalties; says in world of Wall Street executive compensation, pay raise recommended for Dimon is not only defensible, but laudable. MORE

Op-Ed article by former hedge-fund trader Sam Polk contends that he was addicted to money when he worked at banks; laments that addiction researchers have paid little attention to the concept of wealth addiction, which is responsible for the vast and toxic disparity between the rich and the poor; describes leaving his job as a type of withdrawal. MORE

Gretchen Morgenson Fair Game column points out that under the Sarbanes-Oxley law, Securities and Exchange Commission must clear many hurdles before financial executives who are actually held to account for misdeeds can be required to forfeit incentive pay or proceeds from stock sales; still expects a jump in clawback cases. MORE

Walt Disney Company says its chief executive and chairman Robert A Iger received overall compensation in 2013 valued at $34.3 million, down from $40.2 million in the 2012 fiscal year; names Twitter chairman Jack Dorsey to its board of directors. MORE

In a shift of rainmakers on Wall Street, asset and hedge fund managers are edging out bankers when it comes to the size of year-end bonuses. MORE

British Parliament oversight committee issues report sharply criticizing top BBC executives and trustees, including the corporation’s former director general Mark Thompson, now president and chief executive of The New York Times Company; report asserts that BBC’s award of severance payments to departing managers appears to be part of culture of cronyism. MORE

Chronicle of Higher Education’s releases its annual analysis of compensation for presidents of American colleges; tax form data shows that 42 private college presidents were paid more than a million dollars in 2011, up from 36 for the previous two years. MORE

The law firm is poised to pay bonuses of as much as $300,000 to some associates, with the average young lawyer taking home an additional $85,000. MORE

The dispute around director compensation is the latest front in the war of influence between activist hedge funds and corporate boards. MORE

Nov. 25, 2013

Swiss voters reject severe limits on executive pay; many Swiss citizens were uncomfortable with rigid, government-imposed salary caps, even as opinion polls show widespread dismay about huge executive paychecks. MORE

Op-Ed article by author Peter Stamm notes passage of referendum in Switzerland that bans bonuses and puts other restrictions on executive pay; examines historical and cultural trends in country that have produced a widespread aversion to income inequality. MORE

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