[snip]
- The corporate executive stock-option game has always been a farce, perpetrated under the ruse of "advancing shareholder value." But now it has become a charade - a farcical charade.
- "According to a recent report by Smithers & Company," notes Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times, "the value of options granted at the 325 largest companies in United States equaled almost 20 percent of their pretax profits in 2000, the latest year for which data is [sic] available."
- Oftentimes, the corporate pay packages are even more outrageous and costly, as I discovered three years ago while researching a story about Staples Inc. for Grant's Interest Rate Observer. Jim Grant described my discovery as follows: "Last year, Thomas Stemberg, the Staples chairman and CEO, took down $63.1 million by exercising stock options on top of a fiscal 1998 pay package in the sum of $21.7 million. At $84.8 million, the chairman's total compensation was equivalent to 35% of corporate net income (even his two-year pay was equivalent to 22% of two-year corporate net income). Furthermore, year- over-year growth in the boss's earnings, $76.3 million, was greater than year-over-year growth in the company's earnings, $67 million. At least, the shareholders won't have to worry about the CEO worrying about money, or squandering his day on the Web shopping for the best deal on a 30-year mortgage."
[snip] --
/ dave /