The Advisors' Blog

– Broc Romanek, CompensationStandards.com

Even though executive compensation has been very much in the news, it seems like the focus on perks has subsided – or at least, it is not among the top issues in the pay area compared to past years. But recently, there has been a spate of perks news, including this SEC action charging three former senior executives and a former director of infoUSA and infoGROUP for their roles in an alleged scheme in which the CEO funneled illegal compensation to himself in the form of perks worth millions of dollars.

To me, the most noteworthy aspect of the SEC’s action is that it is going after the audit committee chair and appears to have applied a pretty low standard in terms of the audit chair’s responsibility for what went wrong (here are some thoughts by Keith Higgins on the topic; and Kevin LaCroix has commentary too). Note that the last time the SEC went after an audit committee chair was the Chancellor Corp. case back in 2003.

And Paul Hodgson recently wrote this – in TheCorporateLibrary Blog – in a piece entitled “Country Club Membership Perk Still Going Strong”:

But, although still provided to only a small minority of CEOs, the payment of membership fees for country clubs, city clubs, sports clubs et al still appears to be holding up with just under 400 CEOs receiving the perk in both of the most recent 12-month periods.

There’s been some shift, with some companies terminating the benefit, but on the other hand many companies have introduced it. Some of this is due to the disclosure threshold. Initiation fees of up to $100,000 in one year followed by annual membership of less than $10,000 (the SEC disclosure threshold) the next might cause some data just to disappear.