Coronavirus Crimps Some CEO Salaries but Not All
By: Wall Street Journal
April 24, 2020
Cheesecake Factory Inc. furloughed about 41,000 hourly restaurant workers to conserve cash in the coronavirus pandemic. It also cut pay for other employees by as much 20%—a reduction that Chief Executive David Overton matched for his $995,000 salary.
At Yum Brands Inc., Chief Executive David Gibbs is forgoing his $1.2 million salary for the rest of this year, using the money in part to pay one-time $1,000 bonuses to managers of company-owned restaurants in its KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and The Habit Burger Grill chains.
As corporate America reels from the pandemic, senior executives are taking markedly different approaches to sharing the economic pain suffered by employees, a review by The Wall Street Journal found.
Chief executives at 184 companies within the S&P Composite 1500, comprising the biggest public corporations, have announced temporary reductions in their salaries, ranging from 10% to 100%, with a median cut of 50%, according to the Journal’s analysis of data from research firm MyLogIQ and securities filings. Of the 106 companies that have reported furloughing employees, 17 haven’t announced CEO salary reductions, the analysis found.
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