Fred Smith, Founder, Chairman, CEO
FedEx (FDX-NYSE)
Maybe a CEO can be more tied to a company than Fred Smith of FedEx, but you have to go to companies that are named after founders. Mr. Smith is roughly 60 years old and still holds roughly 7% of the stock without getting exact. He is the founder and it could have just as easily been called MailSmith or PackSmith.
His pay is roughly $4.6 million, but he could seek to raise that tenfold and it is unlikely that anyone could stop him. He won’t do that, but that is an example of leadership. He may remain on for another 15 years, 2 years, who knows.
The company has made strategic roll-ups when it saw fit, and probably will continue. He has proven that the Kinko’s purchase was worth the outlay, and that wasn’t an easy sell to everyone at the time. Shares are up roughly fivefold in the last 10-years. He has weathered earnings warnings, a growing UPS competitor, slower economies, net misses, punishing fuel costs, labor negotiations, and even unfortunate plane crashed. Unfortunately that happens in every aspect of the airline or airfreight business if you are around long enough, and he has been there through and through. Investors either have faith in him or they need to learn it, because they will have him in charge as long as he can or wants to be there. And history has shown that isn’t a bad thing at all.
FDX is around $111.00, and its 52-week trading range is $96.50 to $120.01.
As a reminder, here is the link back to the introduction of this CEO segment.
Jon C. Ogg
January 17, 2007
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