Category: 24/7 Wall Street

This Executive Made $108 Million and Is Not a CEO

CEO pay has become a bone of contention between the boards of some public companies and their shareholders. How can a CEO be worth tens of millions of dollars, some investors ask, no matter how good earnings are? Boards argue that the best CEOs are in short supply, and need to be paid sums that will keep them in place, and motivated. Several companies pay executives who are not CEOs extravagant compensation. In these cases,  questions about pay become even more in question.

Some of the non-CEOs who make massive sums are founders or the relatives of founders. For several people at the top of non-CEO large pay packages, this is the case. The top paid non-CEO executive at a public company last year was Larry Ellison, who made $108 million for 2018, according to new data from MyLogIQ, which analyses public company information. Ellison is the executive chairman and chief technology officer of Oracle Corporation, which he founded in 1977. He stepped down as CEO in 2014. He is currently the seventh wealthiest person in the U.S., with a net worth of $71 billion, according to Forbes. Ellison never graduated from college but has built a company with revenue of $40 billion last year. He is also among the world’s premier yachtsmen. A team he financed won the America’s Cup in 2013.

McDonald’s CEO Makes an Hour What the Average Worker Makes a Year

McDonald’s Corp. (NYSE: MCD) has been among the American companies that pay its workers the least. As some evidence of the ongoing pay problem at the fast-food chain, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has released the compensation of McDonald’s CEO Stephen Easterbrook. He was paid $15.9 million in 2018. That is 2,124 times the median employee salary of $7,473. It means that Easterbrook, who has been CEO since 2015, earns in an hour what it takes a median employee to make in a year, according to data from public company intelligence firm MyLogIQ.

Easterbrook’s pay ratio is the sixth highest among chief executives included in MyLogIQ’s data. In our earlier report on the 100 highest-paid CEOs, Easterbrook was number 57. It is not the first year he has been paid well. He made $21.8 million in 2017.

These CEOs Make 1,000 Times More Than Their Employees

The typical employee of The Gap, Inc., the company behind Old Navy, Banana Republic, and Gap clothing brands, earns just under $6,000 a year. Arthur Peck, the company’s CEO, earns as much in about a half hour. While most Gap employees are compensated primarily through wages and salaries, Peck is an exception. Only $1.5 million… Continue reading These CEOs Make 1,000 Times More Than Their Employees

30 S&P 500 CEOs with 20 Years or More on the Job

Keeping a job, any job, for 20 years or more is becoming rarer and rarer. The feat may be uniquely treacherous for the chief executive officer of a publicly traded company that is judged on quarterly performance. As goes the company, so goes the CEO’s career. Among the companies that comprise the S&P 500 index,… Continue reading 30 S&P 500 CEOs with 20 Years or More on the Job