Every year, each public company must publish the ratio of the CEO’s pay to that of the median employee compensation in its proxy. Often, CEOs make several hundred times what their workers do. One of the highest ratios for 2023 was Charter Communications (NASDAQ: CHTR), where the CEO made 1,635 times more than employees. Charter was created by a huge merger.
The median compensation for Charter employees in 2023 was $54,476. CEO Christopher L. Winfrey $89,077,078, of which $74,956,650 was option awards.
Charter did not have a spectacular year in 2023. Revenue rose only 1% to $54.6 billion, and net income fell 9% to $4.6 billion. Mr. Winfrey did not have much to say about the financial statements. In the Q4 press release, he commented, “Our network evolution and convergence efforts remain on course. And we are beginning to see the benefits of investments in our employees and digital service to improve the customer experience. We are executing on a clear strategy to ensure we offer consumers the best products and services, all while saving them money. Not only now, but in the future.” This may be good for customers, but not the bottom line.
Charter’s stock was $367 at the start of 2023. It ended the year at $380. The less than 4% increase does not justify the extraordinarily high pay.
Charter is primarily a cable TV company. It has 32 million customers in 41 states and uses the brand name Spectrum. Cable companies, in general, are having a hard time as people “cut cords,” which means they discontinue cable service and subscribe to streaming services instead.
Cable may be a tough business that is losing customers. Mr. Winfrey made an extraordinary amount of money last year anyway.
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