Coronavirus Caps Years of Rich Pay for Many CEOs
By: Wall Street Journal
March 24, 2020
Chief executives of large U.S. companies rode a more than decadelong bull market to a string of record pay days.
Now, the stock market’s coronavirus-fueled swoon could wipe out hundreds of millions of dollars from executive pay packages and prompt a recalibration of how CEO compensation is set.
The potential losses highlight the flip side of stock-based compensation, experts say. The rout, which has destroyed trillions of dollars in market value for millions of retirees and investors, also is taking a chunk out of the equity awards that lifted many CEOs’ pay to all-time highs in recent years.
For 143 CEOs of S&P 500 companies, the median compensation in 2019 was $13 million, up from $11.2 million for the same group in 2018 and on pace to set a record if the pattern holds for the 2019 data, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.
The Journal analysis uses total compensation, including salary, bonus and stock awards as they are valued in securities filings and provided by MyLogIQ, a research and data firm.
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