Category: WSJ

From Amazon to Starbucks, What Companies Paid Workers in the Pandemic

While the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted millions of jobs and most businesses, many workers kept their jobs and their salaries—and some saw pay rise.

Median pay changed by 5% or less either way at about a third of S&P 500 companies. It rose by more than 5% at 184 companies, and fell by more than 5% at 125.

Those are among the revelations from a Wall Street Journal analysis of annual disclosures by 492 companies using data provided by MyLogIQ. To see the median pay at S&P 500 companies, search or sort the table toward the bottom of this article.

Nearly 140 companies in the S&P 500—including Netflix Inc. and railroad CSX Corp. —said their median worker was paid at least $100,000 last year. Four dozen, including Starbucks Corp. and Amazon.com Inc., said their median worker made less than $30,000 last year. The wages from those four companies were little changed from 2019.

Companies in Certain Industries Receive More Auditor Warnings About Survival

The number of U.S. public companies labeled with auditor warnings about the ability to stay afloat declined overall during the 12 months ended May 31, but they rose in certain industries hard hit by the pandemic, such as transportation, construction and energy.

These warnings, also called going-concern opinions, are published in the annual reports of public companies and refer to their likelihood to remain in business for the next 12 months. Businesses themselves also have to sound the alarm if they think they might not make it for another year.

Although a going-concern notice doesn’t always precede a company’s demise, it can foreshadow a bankruptcy filing or default.

Executives in the spring of 2020 rushed to preserve liquidity, often by slashing jobs, cutting costs, and halting dividends and share repurchases. Some industries—such as e-commerce, technology and food retail—managed to navigate lockdown orders and restrictions, while others, including airlines and oil companies, suffered big losses. Recurring losses, alongside issues such as negative cash flow and inability to pay suppliers, usually trigger going-concern opinions.

Of a total of 5,891 listed companies, 18.8% received such warnings from their auditor in the past year, down from 21.3% in the prior-year period, MyLogIQ said.

CEO Pay Increasingly Tied to Diversity Goals

The killing of George Floyd in police custody a year ago and the subsequent protests prompted pledges from U.S. business leaders: They would fight racism and work to recruit and promote Black and other minority employees.

Now, more companies are putting money behind those pledges by tying executive compensation to specific goals.

In January, Starbucks Corp. said it would give top executives more shares if the coffee chain’s managerial ranks grow more diverse over three years. McDonald’s Corp. in February gave executives annual incentives to increase the share of women and racial minorities in leadership roles by 2025. In March, Nike Inc. said it would for the first time tie some executive pay to five-year goals for improving racial and gender diversity in its workforce and leadership positions.

From Tesla to GE, See How Much CEOs Made in 2020

Median pay reached $13.4 million for chief executives of the biggest U.S. companies in 2020, setting a fifth straight annual record in a year when businesses and their leaders battled a global pandemic.

Most S&P 500 CEOs got raises of about 5% or more as their companies recorded annual shareholder returns of about 8%, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from MyLogIQ.

See below for the CEOs who made the most and the least, as well as those whose companies delivered the best and worst returns for shareholders. Go to the bottom to explore a table with compensation data on more than 400 CEOs.

Discovery Chief Got Options Valued at $190 Million on Eve of AT&T Deal

Discovery Inc. DISCB -1.47% gave Chief Executive David Zaslav 14.8 million stock options on Sunday, the day before the company and AT&T Inc. T -1.14% announced a plan to merge Discovery with AT&T’s WarnerMedia unit, according to a securities filing.

The company valued the option grants at roughly $190 million on Wednesday evening, taking into account the company’s share-price volatility and potential stock appreciation over their eight-year term.

The shares underlying the options were valued at $489 million on Wednesday afternoon, as Discovery’s Class A stock traded around $33 a share. Discovery shares have fallen about 16% since the start of trading on Monday, shortly after the deal was unveiled. The options are currently trading out of the money, meaning the share price would need to rise over the next eight years for Mr. Zaslav to profit from exercising them.

…Mr. Zaslav has run Discovery since 2007 and previously ran a business unit for NBC Universal Inc. He has ranked among the current S&P 500’s 10 highest-paid CEOs in 10 of the past 11 years, according to data from MyLogIQ, which provides data from securities disclosures.

Companies Say They Are Better Prepared to Host Virtual Annual Meetings This Year

Some of the companies that are once again hosting their annual shareholder meetings virtually this year are hoping to improve the experience for investors, many of whom felt muted last year after the sudden shift to remote technology.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. and Dutch software and services company Wolters Kluwer NV are among the companies working to increase interaction with their shareholders, from allowing investors to pose live questions and interact with management, allocating more time for questions to incorporating new videoconferencing tools.

The bulk of annual investor meetings—which take months of preparation—usually is held between mid-April and June. Last spring, many businesses abruptly switched to remote events after lockdown orders and restrictions were put in place to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. The last-minute changes to a virtual format resulted in shorter meetings, fewer direct questions and technical glitches that prevented some shareholders from voting.

…This year, 346 companies, or 86% of a total of 403 in the S&P 500 that filed their proxy statement through April 22, said they would hold their annual shareholder meeting remotely as large physical gatherings remain restricted, according to data provider MyLogIQ.

Asian-American Professionals Push For Visibility at Work

Kaycee Lai spent years in Silicon Valley trying to avoid calling attention to his ethnic identity.

Early in his career, if he left work to get bubble tea, a Taiwanese drink, he’d tell his white colleagues he was getting coffee. When co-workers made comments about his race—such as suggesting that, as an Asian male, he should be in coding rather than sales—he would laugh them off.

“For the longest time, Asian-Americans have felt like you can achieve the American dream so long as you shut up and aren’t seen,” says Mr. Lai, who worked at Microsoft and software company VMware before founding his own data-analytics firm, Promethium, in 2018.

But amid a wave of outrage and sorrow prompted by a recent surge in verbal and physical attacks against people of Asian descent, that sentiment is changing among many Asian-American professionals. Since the Atlanta shooting last month in which six women of Asian descent were among eight killed, many Asian professionals have talked at company town halls about their experiences of racism and what it means to be Asian in U.S. workplaces and society. Some have pushed for donations from their employers toward issues facing Asian communities, while others have simply called for Asians to be more visible in the workplace.

…Among CEOs of S&P 500 companies, 3% are Indian and 2% are of other Asian descent, according to MyLogIQ, a data tracker.

CFO Pay Rises as Their Companies Navigate Coronavirus Pandemic

Finance executives at America’s biggest companies received a collective 7% pay rise last year as many of them steered their firms’ finances through the pandemic, though not all saw their compensation increase.

Chief financial officers at the largest 100 companies in the S&P 500 by market capitalization that disclosed executive pay through April 12 received 7% more in median pay in 2020 than a year before, equal to about $6 million total, according to data provider MyLogIQ. Pay packages were boosted by an increase in equity-based compensation. Median pay represents the midpoint of all companies in the data set.

CFOs last year played a central role in navigating their companies through the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Many businesses shored up cash, slashed costs and temporarily cut executive salaries amid lockdown orders aimed at slowing the spread of the virus.