As Proxy Season Begins, $10 Million To $20 Million Is Still The Norm For CEOs

The outrage over investment bank salaries has just begun to die. Many financial firm CEOs and senior managers took less pay than they have in recent years, and took a larger percent of their payouts in stock. That did not keep Congress, the White House, and the public from claiming the managements at companies like Goldman Sachs (GS) were overpaid.

Proxy season has begun and as the documents are mailed to shareholders it is clear that there has not been much belt-tightening in the corporate suits of most large US public companies. Pay packages of $10 million to $20 million or better seem to be the norm based on early figures.

Jeff Immelt at GE (GE) gave up his bonus and his base salary in 2009 stayed at $3.3 million, which is what it was in 2008 and 2007. His gesture meant very little. GE did not have a particularly good year, but its four Vice Chairmen made over $13 million each.

At Coco-Cola (KO,  the board decreased chief Mahtar Kent’s total compensation to $18.8 million from $22.4 million in 2008.  The nineteen million dollars may seem to be a pay cut, but to the average worker at Coke and the average shareholder, it is a king’s ransom.

Lockheed Martin (LMT) posted a slight drop in net income last year, but CEO Robert J. Stevens made $23 million.

The rate at which proxies will be released will pick up over the next two or three weeks. It is unlikely that many CEOs at America’s largest companies will be on their way to the poor house. That will raise this issue for the hundredth time about why chief executives are paid so much more than their workers, even when the firms that they run have mediocre years. Congress will call for public companies to give more power to shareholders to set management compensation.

But, 2010 will be like last year and the year before that and the one before that. Boards of directors will set CEO pay. They will continue to be reluctant to punish management for weak results. The CEO pay bonanza will go for another year because the federal government will focus on it during proxy season but will quickly turn its attention to other things which it feels are more pressing.

Douglas A. McIntyre