The Advisors' Blog

This blog features wisdom from respected compensation consultants and lawyers

September 8, 2011

TSR vs. CEO Pay: How Do You Compare?

Broc Romanek, CompensationStandards.com

Equilar recently released a report -“TSR Performance and CEO Pay Report” – about the relationship between total shareholder return (TSR) and CEO compensation in the S&P 1500. The report’s findings include:

– 23.9% of firms increased their CEO’s pay, despite below-median TSR, in the past year (2008-2009).
– 30.0% of firms increased their CEO’s pay, despite below-median TSR, in the past three years (2006-2009).
– Almost all companies studied increased their CEO’s base salary from 2006 to 2009, even if the CEO’s total compensation went down.

Normally, you can request a copy of Equilar’s reports – but I don’t see a link for that yet on their site…