By Paul Hodgson – Chief Research Analyst Golden Hello of the Week Events Analyst Dovid Muyderman located this Golden Hello of the Week in an 8-K from Christopher & Banks. This Amendment No. 1 amends the Current Report on Form 8-K of Christopher & Banks Corporation (the “Company”)(CBK) filed on November 1, 2012 (the “Original [...]
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Global LeaderBoard: Why Should We Care?
December 4, 2012 in Board Diversity, Boards, Corporate Governance, Daily Viewpoint, ESG Ratings & Research
By Paul Hodgson – Chief Research Analyst Global LeaderBoard (GLB) is an online research and data-visualization tool designed to deepen the analysis of corporate governance practices that can materially affect issuer risk. GLB maps complex relationship patterns at the individual, organizational, industry and regional levels. Among many other insights, GLB allows subscribers to identify corporate [...]
Realized pay realizable pay grant date value pay and now… performance-adjusted compensation
December 3, 2012 in CEO Pay, Daily Viewpoint, Executive Pay
By Paul Hodgson, Chief Research Analyst A recent white paper from compensation consultancy Farient Advisors brings a new approach to valuing executive compensation. It premises three main concerns about the existing alternative approaches to putting a number to compensation – realized pay (the GMI Ratings approach which includes vested stock and exercised stock options) and [...]
Jos A. Bank Earnings hit by Sandy and the election…
November 30, 2012 in Daily Viewpoint
By Damion Rallis, Senior Research Associate When we last discussed men’s clothing maker Jos A. Bank Clothiers (NASD:JOSB) back in August we cautioned that the company’s surging stock price was clouded considerably by its “Aggressive” AGR® Rating along with several ESG KeyMetrics™ red flags. After a brief surge following the company’s favorable second quarter earnings announcement at [...]
Small Print
November 30, 2012 in Daily Viewpoint, Small Print
By Paul Hodgson – Chief Research Analyst Dickensian Term of the Week Events Analyst Dovid Muyderman spotted this Dickensian Term of the Week in a November 14 8-K from NewLink Genetics. On November 14, 2012, NewLink Genetics (NASDAQ:NLNK) announced that the European Commission (EC) has designated HyperAcute-Pancreas® Immunotherapy (algenpantucel-L) as an orphan medicinal product under [...]
Xstrata Shareholders: Yes to the Merger; No to the Merger Bonuses
November 28, 2012 in Daily Viewpoint, Executive Pay
By Paul Hodgson – Chief Research Analyst At the special meeting last week, Xstrata shareholders voted to approve the merger with Glencore but voted against controversial retention payments for managers. So contentious were these merger bonuses that the company removed them from the merger vote so that shareholders could separately approve or disapprove them while [...]
Does GMI Ratings Give Everyone an F?
November 26, 2012 in AGR, Daily Viewpoint, ESG Ratings & Research
By Paul Hodgson – Chief Research Analyst Introduction Like its predecessor firms (The Corporate Library, GovernanceMetrics International, and Audit Integrity), GMI Ratings prides itself on identifying potential problems that stem from poor management practices. The historic correlation between those practices and negative events allows GMI Ratings to predict the likelihood of future events that can [...]
Small Print
November 16, 2012 in Daily Viewpoint, Small Print
By Paul Hodgson – Chief Research Analyst Executive Quotation of the Week From a Reuters report on Best Buy via Events Team Manager Mark Magee comes this week’s winner of the Executive Quotation of the Week Competition. “I know that the company is going to reinvent itself and I came out of retirement because I [...]
It is time for real bank clawbacks
November 15, 2012 in CEO Pay, Daily Viewpoint, Financial Crisis, Scandals
By Paul Hodgson – Chief Research Analyst An edited version of this op-ed appeared on Bloomberg View on October 3, 2012 and this version appeared today on my blog on Forbes.com It was announced in the FT today that the Financial Services Authority expects banks to reduce or clawback bonuses in British banks and non-U.K. [...]
The Demise of MF Global Holdings Ltd: A Belated Autopsy
November 5, 2012 in Daily Viewpoint, Scandals
By Kap Su Seol – Research Analyst When Hurricane Sandy brought Wall Street to a virtual stop last week, it also cloaked the first anniversary of one of the Street’s more memorable recent events in oblivion – the demise of MF Global Holdings Ltd. On October 31, 2011, MF Global Holdings Ltd. collapsed, stranding thousands [...]
Small Print
November 2, 2012 in Daily Viewpoint, Small Print
By Paul Hodgson – Chief Research Analyst Getting to Know Your Peers From Compensation Analyst Team Leader Scott Patterson comes this interesting little interlock. JDS Uniphase Corporation CEO Thomas Waechter should have a pretty good understanding of at least one of his company’s peers; he’s on their board. From his bio: Mr. Waechter serves as a member [...]
The “Antistar” CEO
November 1, 2012 in Corporate Governance, Daily Viewpoint
By Kimberly Gladman, Director of Research and Risk Analytics I had a chance today to read a March 2012 report put out by Oddo Securities, a French brokerage house known for its work on ESG research. With the kind of interdisciplinary erudition that seems (sadly) to be permissible only in Gallic financial research, author Sebastien [...]
Small Print
October 26, 2012 in Daily Viewpoint, Small Print
By Paul Hodgson, Chief Research Analyst The Definition of Irony Events Analyst Marge Schwietering spotted this website release from Energizer Holdings. Energizer Holdings Inc. (NYSE: ENR), announced today it is initiating a voluntary market withdrawal of the continuous spray Banana Boat sun care products identified in the table below [you don’t want to see the [...]
Obama Executive Compensation Reforms: Chickens Coming Home to Roost
October 26, 2012 in Daily Viewpoint, Executive Pay: Banks
By Paul Hodgson, Chief Research Analyst According to a Reuters report this morning, President Obama has his sights set on executive compensation reform as a further move to prevent risky behavior being incentivized in the financial services sector. In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Mr. Obama said: “The single biggest thing that I would [...]
Small Print
October 19, 2012 in Daily Viewpoint, Small Print
By Paul Hodgson – Chief Research Analyst Options 101 Our first comes from Compensation Analyst Team Leader Scott Patterson, from Education Management Corp’s 2012 proxy. Pursuant to the Exchange Offer, the Company offered employees of the Company and other eligible option holders the opportunity to exchange all, or in some cases a portion, of their [...]
Executive Pay Out of Alignment at Abbott Laboratories
October 18, 2012 in CEO Pay, Daily Viewpoint, Scandals
By Jeffrey Gramlich – L.L. Bean/Lee Surace Professor of Accounting, at the University of Southern Maine This is a summary of a presentation given by Jeffrey Gramlich, L.L. Bean/Lee Surace Professor of Accounting, at the University of Southern Maine, made on behalf of GMI Ratings at the recent Leet Symposium at the Case Western Law School [...]
Status Quo at News Corp
October 18, 2012 in Boards, Corporate Governance, Daily Viewpoint, Proxy Voting
By Paul Hodgson – Chief Research Analyst It was business as usual at News Corp’s annual meeting. CEO and chairman Rupert Murdoch’s claim that shareholders had rejected the call to split the chairman and CEO roles, had supported executive pay at the firm, rejected calls to eliminate the dual share class structure and to introduce simple [...]
Another Golden Hello! from Yahoo!
October 16, 2012 in Daily Viewpoint, Executive Pay
By Paul Hodgson – Chief Research Analyst Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer has poached a Google colleague to be the company’s COO, but not without cost. In a filing yesterday, Henrique de Castro’s golden hello was described. The package is made up of: Base salary and bonus One-time retention equity award (vesting over four years) Make-whole [...]
£7MM Pay-off for News Corp’s Rebekah Brooks
October 16, 2012 in CEO Pay, Daily Viewpoint, Scandals
By Paul Hodgson – Chief Research Analyst Yesterday the Financial Times wrote that the former CEO of News International, Rupert Murdoch’s U.K. newspapers business, Rebekah Brooks received a golden parachute of more than £7 million on her resignation. The paper describes the payments as comprising cash, pension payments, an allowance for legal fees and the [...]
Citigroup loses top two executives, including CEO Pandit
October 16, 2012 in CEO Pay, Daily Viewpoint
By Paul Hodgson – Chief Research Analyst Citigroup announced the resignation of CEO Vikram Pandit this morning. The website release said: Given the progress we have made in the last few years, I have concluded that now is the right time for someone else to take the helm at Citigroup. However, the proximity of the [...]