Increasing demands on directors’ time are prompting boards and committee chairs to regularly hold ad hoc “meetings between the meetings,” as directors call them, ranging from quick, 30-minute discussions to lengthier deep dives, as boards grapple with packed agendas that leave little room for broader emerging issues. Research suggests that increasing time demands — whether…
Insurance underwriter Argo Group has been asked by the SEC to hand over documents related to perks awarded to its executives. The SEC inquiry into Argo’s disclosures on executive perks, which was first reported by Bloomberg, comes after a proxy fight with Voce Capital earlier this year, and could indicate that activist investors have the ear of the SEC. “The takeaway…
Top legal officers are becoming increasingly valuable to corporations, at least according to the rising number of digits in some of their compensation packages. Pay for the general counsel (GC) and chief legal officer role reached a five-year high, according to data released last month from compensation consultancy Equilar and executive search firm BarkerGilmore. This latest research “brings…
Directors with decades of experience as well as those in their 70s are retiring or opting not to stand for reelection. Meanwhile, new board appointments show that searches are prioritizing gender diversity, technology and cyber security. According to public company intelligence provider MyLogIQ, in the past six weeks, the boards of AutoZone, Campbell Soup Company, Cigna Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, NRG Energy and Walgreens Boots…
Boards are continuing to adopt limits on the amount of compensation directors can earn in a year to protect against pay lawsuits alleging breach of fiduciary duty. However, as more suits have progressed, some boards are implementing new limits that appear to be trending lower than those adopted previously, and a few boards have even…
The largest companies are gradually telling investors more about the pains they’re taking to protect their own information as well as customers’ privacy. Yet some industries are reporting those efforts better than others, according to new studies. A growing number of firms have fallen into step with last year’s guidance from the Securities and Exchange Commission to…
In private conversations, many board members confide that they’re frustrated that they often run short of time in board meetings without adequately discussing strategy. They say those conversations get short shrift while they spend time making sure their managers are compliant with regulations and are managing risks. Indeed, three years ago, McKinsey, the management consulting firm,…
In recent weeks, several boards have grown in size to bring on new directors. According to SEC filings analyzer MyLogIQ, boards of such companies as Ball Corporation, Micron Technology and Oracle amended bylaws dictating board size in order to appoint new directors, while Cintas, Ford Motor Co. and General Mills expanded without needing formal votes on bylaws. All the new directors appointed to the preceding boards are women,…
One-time stock awards for CEOs in fiscal year 2018 are up, compared to the previous two years. According to data from analytics firm MyLogIQ, in 2018, the largest one-time stock awards in the S&P 500 went to Oracle’s co-CEOs Safra Catz and Mark Hurd, each of whom received special awards of nearly $104 million — almost seven times the next-largest…
The typical S&P 500 company pays its chief executive officer more — typically 2.7 times more — than its next four named executive officers, or NEOs. But not always. Agenda commissioned research firm MyLogIQ, which crunches data from SEC filings, to analyze the largest S&P 500 companies at which an NEO received more compensation than the CEO…