Severance practices continue to evolve, but not as dramatically as we have seen in previous years. Corporate directors persist in implementing reformations of severance practices, but at this point these changes tend to involve minor tweaks rather than drastic revisions. These reformations take...

Learn how executive pay packages and incentive pay are designed for the top 200 public companies. Gallagher's HR & Compensation Consulting's 8th annual report investigates executive compensation info being shared in annual proxy statements. This study provides a behind-the-scenes look at how...

This article details key findings from Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.'s seventh annual study of short- and long-term incentive plan design trends among the top 200 US companies by market cap.The Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) requires that in their annual proxy statements, public...

This paper presents an analysis of Long-Term Incentive Plans (“LTIPs”) in place at Top 200 companies. Performance shares have been around for many years and now comprise the majority of the LTI award (on a grant date value basis) for the CEO of a large U.S. company. As demonstrated by...

Shareholders are increasingly aware of executive compensation issues and are focused on the relationship between pay and performance. Indeed, with say on pay (“SOP”) implemented in 2011 (with most of the SOP votes being annual), pay for performance has become a core issue for investors and a...

The revolution in incentive plans is turning toward the use of performance milestones. Milestones provide the ultimate flexibility as to setting goals for senior management, or all employees for that matter. What could be simpler and more effective than setting milestones for the overall success...

Based on our recent analysis, we discovered two very interesting points. First, the companies that used the same performance measures in each of the past five years outperformed others that changed measures. Second, the best performance measure is Earnings per Share (“EPS”), followed by...

Perquisites are a form of non-performance based pay that has received significant scrutiny by shareholders over the past eight years, since new SEC disclosure requirements have highlighted more information about them. In order to investigate how perquisite levels have changed in the past six...

Finding the right balance is key to your long-term incentive plan. How does your company's program measure up against the top US companies? This article summarizes trends in long-term incentive design, based on data as disclosed in 2014 annual proxy statements for 200 of the largest U.S. companies

This article provides an analysis of how incentives are being structured to connect pay and performance at electric utility companies. Within the largest 200 US public companies, there are 16 electric utility companies (“EUC-16”). We are looking at the EUC-16 as a separate group from the...