Wednesday, July 12, 2017

Teamsters Urge McKesson Shareholders to Vote Against CEO Pay

NEW YORK — The International Brotherhood of Teamsters urged McKesson Corp's shareholders to vote against the company's executive pay practices and called for it to appoint an independent chairman as the union criticized the drug distributor for its role in the U.S. opioid drug epidemic.
McKesson Chief Executive John Hammergren was paid more than $20 million for the year ended March 31, despite the company's record $150 million settlement paid to resolve a U.S. investigation into whether it failed to report suspicious orders of addictive painkillers.
"Recent pay decisions ... send completely the wrong message to shareholders, regulators, lawmakers and the public about executive accountability," the Teamsters wrote in a letter to other shareholders filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday.

Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Caterpillar shareholders vote on company policies, directors this week

PEORIA — An investment group that previously pressured Caterpillar Inc. to alter executive compensation formulas is asking shareholders to once again nudge the board of directors in a different direction at the company’s annual meeting this week.
CtW Investment Group wants shareholders to endorse strengthened executive compensation clawback provisions — giving stockholders more ways to recoup money from company officers found to have been negligent or to have engaged in misconduct.
CtW, which promotes investor activism by working with the pension funds of a federation of unions representing 5.5 million members and more than $200 billion in assets, also seeks more transparency from Caterpillar when clawbacks occur.

Monday, June 19, 2017

Exxon Mobil's executive pay plan gets thumbs down from top proxy adviser

Exxon Mobil shareholders should not support the continuation of the oil major's executive payment program, influential proxy advisory ISS has determined.
The advisory says the company's payment structure for its CEO is out of step with current market standards, and Exxon offers too little detail on the criteria for bonuses.
"Exxon's executive pay program has remained largely unchanged for the better part of a decade. What has not remained constant over this period, however, are prevailing market practices and investors' expectations around executive compensation and related disclosure," it concluded.
CNBC

Early Proxy Results Signal Investors Want Annual Say on Executive Pay

Shareholders strongly favor maintaining annual say-on-pay votes, even though the majority of investors back company executive compensation plans, according to a report from ISS Analytics, a unit of the nation’s biggest proxy adviser.
Investors this year get to weigh in on how frequently companies should seek their opinion on executive remuneration plans. This is the second time shareholders get to decide on the frequency of the executive compensation approval ballot since 2011when the rules first came into effect. Investors could opt to hold the vote annually, once every two years, or every three years.

CEO pay climbed faster last year, up 8.5 percent

The typical CEO at the biggest U.S. companies got an 8.5 percent raise last year, raking in $11.5 million in salary, stock and other compensation last year, according to a study by executive data firm Equilar for The Associated Press. That's the biggest raise in three years.
The bump reflects how well stocks have done under these CEOs' watch. Boards of directors increasingly require that CEOs push their stock price higher to collect their maximum possible payout, and the Standard & Poor's 500 index returned 12 percent last year.
Stan Choe, Associated Press May 23rd, 2017
Read more here.

ISS pressures Mylan ahead of shareholder vote

Influential proxy firm ISS on Monday turned up the heat on Mylan NV, advising its institutional clients to voice their dissatisfaction with the generic drugmaker's board of directors and its chairman's pay package at its June 22 shareholder meeting.

ISS's urged votes against 10 board members and executive pay packages, recommendations that come after a small group of high-profile investors, including the state and city of New York pension funds and the California teachers pension fund, urged other shareholders to vote against six board members and Chairman Robert Coury. It cited Mylan's eroding reputation and share price.
BUSINESS NEWS | Mon Jun 12, 2017 | 12:19pm EDT
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Tuesday, April 11, 2017

BP cuts CEO's pay package after shareholder backlash

BP (BP.L) has cut Chief Executive Bob Dudley's 2016 pay package by 40 percent to $11.6 million, the latest British bluechip company to rein in executive pay after a wave of shareholder revolts.
The oil company has reduced Dudley's payout and introduced changes from this year that will lower executives' performance incentives. The cuts come after around 60 percent of shareholders opposed BP's pay policy at last year's annual general meeting.

Executive pay has come under growing scrutiny in Britain after a string of corporate scandals, such as the collapse of store chain BHS, which has fueled mistrust of the high levels of pay awarded to company bosses.
By Karolin Schaps | LONDON
BUSINESS NEWS | Thu Apr 6, 2017 | 11:55am EDT
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