As the time of year approaches when many board committees conduct reviews of director compensation, boards are pressing pause on annual increases to cash and equity retainers, and only making small surgical changes to compensation programs if it appears necessary due to leadership transitions. George Paulin, chairman and CEO of Frederic W. Cook & Co., says…
As bad as the pandemic job losses have been, with around 31 million Americans on unemployment rolls, it could actually have been worse. Some companies have managed to cut their labor costs to save money, without resorting to permanent layoffs — at least so far. In a recent survey of HR managers, outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas found…
When meat orders from restaurants, hotels and other food-service clients dried up at two of Hormel Foods Corp.’s plants in April, finance chief Jim Sheehan chose to furlough roughly 350 workers, but didn’t lay them off. These furloughed employees didn’t receive pay but got benefits such as health care. It was a careful calculus. After years of effort…
While many executives continue to work from home, data shows that travel by corporate aircraft and chartered and fractionally owned jet fleets has begun to take off in recent weeks. That trend is likely to continue through 2020 as companies seek to reduce the risk of CEOs’ being exposed to the coronavirus. Accordingly, sources say…
As the US economy opens up, a review of the past three months of S&P 1500 responses to the COVID-19 pandemic indicates that the largest companies, as measured by the S&P 500 market capitalization of $8.2B or greater, reported making the most moves to preserve capital and revise earnings guidance. We used the CompanyIQ® SEC…
Covid-19 has led to widespread changes to financial guidance, buyback programs and dividend payments across the whole of the US equity market, although notable differences exist between different market-cap segments, according to new research. IR Magazine has worked with MyLogIQ, a provider of intelligence tools focused on compliance and disclosure, to understand how companies on the…
CFOs saw an increase in pay last year as responsibilities for non-financial issues, including operations and strategy, expanded, sources say. Moreover, the Covid-19 pandemic is driving a redoubled focus on operations and emergency planning from CFOs, and some companies are bringing in battle-hardened finance veterans to tackle the issues related to the crisis. However, it…
Hundreds of U.S. companies reduced salaries for their chief executives as the coronavirus pandemic swept across American business, a reversal for a group of leaders that until this year has ridden a bull market to record compensation. Big-company CEOs had their richest paydays ever in 2019, a Wall Street Journal analysis shows. But in March…
Investors are pushing companies to address things like hazard pay and whether temporary policies and practices related to employees need to stay in place as businesses transition out of the depth of the pandemic. Yesterday, New York City comptroller Scott Stringer sent a letter to the Amazon board’s leadership development and compensation committee asking chair Judith McGrath to address at its upcoming annual…
According to a review of SEC filings by S&P 500 companies by MyLogIQ, as of May 11: 273 S&P 500 companies have switched to virtual meetings 146 S&P 500 companies have suspended share buybacks 50 S&P 500 companies have suspended or cut dividends 37 S&P 500 companies have instituted job freezes 91 S&P 500 companies have cut executive…