Executive Investigator

You thought CEOs were well paid

ExecutiveInvestigator.com — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:07:36 GMT

Executive Excess 2008 also looks at the pay of fund managers - which is usually ignored in general discussions of rising pay because such managers are not heads of publicly traded companies so many arguments levied against them do not apply. However, through the lens of beneficial tax treatment, fund managers may be more, not less, guilty. Here are the top 5 fund managers by pay in 2007 (no, these billion dollar numbers are not typos):

John Paulson, Paulson & Co.: $3.7 billion
George Soros, Soros Fund Management: $2.9 billion
James Simons, Renaissance Technologies: $2.8 billion
Philip Falcone, Harbinger Partners: $1.7 billion
Kenneth Griffin, Citadel Investment Group: $1.5 billion

Executive Excess Overview

ExecutiveInvestigator.com — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:01:32 GMT

As promised, the beginning of an extensive look at the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy's 15th annual CEO Compensation Survey, this year titled "Executive Excess 2008: How Average Taxpayers Subsidize Runaway Pay."

Key Findings

CEO-WORKER DIVIDE: S&P 500 CEOs last year averaged $10.5 million, 344 times the pay of typical American workers. Last year, the top 50 hedge and private equity fund managers averaged $588 million each, more than 19,000 times as much as typical U.S. workers earned.

TAXPAYER SUBSIDIES FOR EXECUTIVE PAY: Average U.S. taxpayers subsidize excessive executive compensation — by more than $20 billion per year — via a variety of tax and accounting loopholes.

INDIRECT TAXPAYER SUPPORT FOR RUNAWAY PAY: More than 85 percent of the public companies on the federal government’s top 100 contractors list paid their CEOs over 100 times the pay of average U.S. workers.

REFORM ROADBLOCKS: Legislation that would plug executive-friendly tax loopholes is already pending in Congress. But this legislation has stalled — and will likely remain stalled unless the November 2008 elections change current Congressional voting dynamics.

CEO Pay Issue Basics

ExecutiveInvestigator.com — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 15:07:57 GMT

The Christian Science Monitor takes a broad look at the executive compensation issue:

How much?

Some 77 percent of Americans polled last year felt that corporate executives "earn too much." Most corporate boards apparently disagree. Last year, although the nation's economy was already in trouble, they gave the chief executive officers of the Standard & Poor's 500 largest companies on average a 2.6 percent pay hike to $10,544,470.

Why no action?

On the presidential campaign trail, both Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain attack the high levels of pay for corporate bosses, but are mostly fuzzy on remedies. Several bills before Congress would attempt to tame runaway executive pay. But none have passed both houses.

Politicians are "looking out" to protect the campaign contributions they receive from corporate executives, says Ms. Anderson. And it's an election year.

Are they worth the money?

A new study by economists Ulrike Malmendier at the University of California, Berkeley, and Geoffrey Tate at the UCLA Anderson School of Management, Los Angeles, cast some doubt for some "CEO superstars." After gaining fame and prestigious awards from business magazines and others for their corporate performance, they are rewarded with even more pay. But in the next three years their firms underperform by 15 to 20 percent compared with firms of non-prize-winning executives.

Ms. Malmendier suspects the CEOs are too busy writing books, sitting on other company boards, taking prestigious public service jobs, and improving their golf handicaps.