October 1, 2014
Coca-Cola’s New “Equity Stewardship Guidelines”
– Broc Romanek, CompensationStandards.com
Back in May, I blogged about a flap over Coca-Cola’s equity compensation plan. Showing how shareholder engagement works, the company announced this morning that its Compensation Committee has adopted “Equity Stewardship Guidelines” for the company’s equity plan.
Perhaps just as interesting is that the Compensation Committee Chair pushed out a blog on the company’s “Unbottled” blog about the announcement.
This looks to be a pretty innovative approach to explaining how shares under the equity plan will be used responsibly, while addressing the criticism about the plan. In addition to including a burn rate commitment that is expected to make the plan last its full term of 10 years, the Guidelines provide that Coca-Cola will include information on actual dilution, burn rate and overhang in their proxy statement each year. Plus they will continue to minimize dilution through share repurchases and encourage an open dialogue with shareholders about compensation. I look forward to seeing what they do in their next proxy statement…
All of the video archives from our two days of executive pay conferences are now posted…