Dreams of retirement at Medicis …
There are big raises, and then there are big raises. Jonah Shacknai, chairman and chief executive of Medicis Pharmaceutical (MRX) got one of the latter kinds in 2011 — but it isn’t quite what it seems, which may be unsurprising given the company’s colorful approach to pay. We last footnoted Medicis in August, you may recall, to...
No equivalent for “dividends” at Invesco, others …
One of the more curious executive compensation practices to develop over the years is the “dividend equivalent,” also sometimes called hypothetical, unvested or deferred dividends, among other terms. These are dividends, or payments in lieu of actual dividends, that are paid on on shares of stock that the executive doesn’t yet own — a fascinating...
Quest Diagnostics wants your opinion — really…
We often call out companies and boards for turning a deaf ear to shareholders. We did it just a couple days ago when we footnoted NYSE Euronext (NYX), which is doing its best to avoid doing what most of its shareholders have asked it to do. Now comes the flip side — Quest Diagnostics (DGX)...
Man of steel gains as Nucor stockholders languish…
Let’s hear it for the corporate boss who gets a 20% raise — or maybe 88%, depending how you count — when his company lost shareholders 6.4% for the year, saw returns trail the S&P 500 by 8.5 percentage points, and has seen returns trail its industry by 12 points over the last three years....
A missed opportunity? Zayo’s bid for AboveNet…
This is a post about one that got away — sort of. On January 18, we sent the list of our top 10 M&A picks for 2012 to footnotedPro subscribers (and only to subscribers), with a follow-up report that went out on February 24 to subscribers and trial subscribers. We see a lot of potential...
Sears seeks to stem the (executive) losses…
The saga of Sears Holdings (SHLD) in its many incarnations over the years is a dramatic one, not least for investors, and we seem to once again be in one of those nail-biting chapters full of comings, goings and at least mild drama. Some of those comings and goings, of course, are company executives. We...
Revisiting IBM’s Palmisano equation…
Back in October, when International Business Machines (IBM) announced that Samuel Palmisano would step down as chief executive but remain chairman, we footnoted the enormous exit package he was eligible to collect pretty much any time he wanted. Because of the timing, we were forced to use months-old data. But yesterday, IBM filed its latest...
A champagne retirement on a McDonald’s career…
First, let us stress that we have seen no indications that James A. Skinner, vice-chairman and chief executive of McDonald’s (MCD), plans to step down any time soon. In fact, quite the contrary, judging from the hagiography that Fortune recently published, and a suggestion in The New York Times a couple years ago that one...
Silly season at Manpower, McDermott & more…
The 10-Ks have slowed to a trickle, and the proxies are flowing in earnest. In them are plenty of revelations about the perks and little luxuries that companies shower on their top brass. If you need no other sign that the tepid economic recovery so far has been good news for executives, the prevalence of...
270,033 pages later, a chance to catch our breath…
Whew. Unless you’re intimately involved in writing or reading corporate disclosures, you may not realize it, but a marathon of sorts just wrapped up. Yesterday marked the deadline for big companies operating on a calendar year to file their annual reports (Form 10-K filings) with the Securities and Exchange Commission. To put some context to...
Of proxy fights and raises at AOL…
When it comes to reading filings, it’s easy to get immersed in the details. Sometimes you get a better picture, and a more entertaining one, by taking a step back. That’s the case with AOL (AOL), which is facing a feisty proxy battle with Starboard Value LP, an activist investor (it owns 5.2% of AOL’s...
