The Advisors' Blog

– Liz Dunshee

Here’s something that John blogged last week on TheCorporateCounsel.net (also see this Cooley blog): SEC Commissioner Robert Jackson recently co-authored a WSJ opinion piece calling for increased transparency about the use of non-GAAP numbers in setting executive pay. The article notes that Reg G generally requires companies to provide comparable GAAP information & a reconciliation, but acknowledges that this doesn’t apply to the CD&A discussion. The authors think it should:

Unfortunately, those requirements do not apply to the reports that compensation committees of corporate boards disclose to investors each year. Thus, committees choosing to use adjustments when deciding on payouts need not explain why an adjusted version of earnings is the right way to determine incentive pay for the company’s top managers. This increases the risk that adjustments will be used to justify windfalls to underperforming managers.

The SEC’s disclosure rules have not kept pace with changes in compensation practices, so investors cannot easily distinguish between high pay based on good performance and bloated pay justified by accounting gimmicks. That’s why we’re calling on the SEC to require companies to explain why non-GAAP measures are driving compensation decisions—and quantify any differences between adjusted criteria and GAAP. A few public companies already provide investors with this kind of transparency. Others can too.

Meanwhile, I’ve blogged a few times about how ISS research reports now include “Economic Value Added” metrics in the pay-for-performance analysis. This Willis Towers Watson memo notes that there are 15 non-GAAP adjustments underlying ISS’s EVA calculation. Things could get rough in CD&A land if these aspirational metrics collide with Reg G reconciliations.