Insights
Incentive Design, Equity Usage & Grant Practices
2021 Use of Environmental, Social, and Governance Metrics in Incentive Plans
Research Report | By Christina LaRocque, Matt Lum
Increased investor and stakeholder interest in Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) topics has led to increased focus on ESG among public companies. One approach for signaling the importance of ESG externally is to incorporate ESG metrics and goals into executive incentive plans.
Observations from FW Cook’s CEO: ESG in Incentive Plans
Our clients are actively discussing how best to signal to investors and other stakeholders the importance of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) objectives, and a variety of factors – the global pandemic, climate change, social justice concerns – are contributing to a rapid increase in the use of…
2020 Use of Environmental, Social, and Governance Measures in Incentive Plans
Research Report | By Erin Bass-Goldberg, Tahmid Ali
Driven by multiple stakeholders embracing the premise that a strong ESG proposition is an essential element to sustainable long-term company performance, attention on company ESG behavior and transparency is rapidly increasing. This report looks at the current practices among the largest U.S. public companies with respect to use of ESG measures within incentive programs.
2020 Top 250 Report
Research Report | By Andrew Lash, Joey Choi, Matt Lum
COVID-19 has created a business environment of unprecedented volatility and uncertainty – challenging leaders’ ability to establish short and long-term business forecasts and forcing boards of directors and compensation professionals to re-assess incentive programs. This report presents information on long-term incentives granted to executives at the 250 largest U.S. companies in the S&P 500 Index.
Lessons Learned from Early Filers: Insights into Incentive Compensation Decisions in the COVID-19 Environment
The COVID-19 outbreak has caused major disruptions across businesses worldwide, and there are wide-ranging implications for the administration of compensation programs. While most calendar-year companies have several months left to determine how they will handle their in-cycle incentive plans…
2020 Aggregate Share-Based Compensation
Research Report | By James Garriga
Our fourth study of aggregate share-based compensation includes findings on company-wide annual grant rates; overhang; frequency and prevalence of long-term incentive plan share requestes; and allocation of long-term incentive pools to the CEO and other proxy officers.
Incentives in the Pandemic
By Michael Marino, Arthur Kohn, Michael Albano, Caroline Hayday, Howard Pianko, Ben Conley
While much of the focus today is on restarting segments of the economy and developing action plans to reopen businesses, history outside of corporate America teaches us important lessons on how incentives can play a role in driving effective outcomes. It shows us that incentives, not just rules, may be the solution businesses need…
The Executive Pay Dilemma
By Michael Marino, Arthur Kohn, Caroline Hayday
Executive pay in the midst of the pandemic presents an obvious dilemma. On the one hand, it would be a stretch to blame fairly management teams for most of the adverse financial performance that will stretch across a broad range of industries. On the other, they cannot escape the consequences either…
2019 Top 250 Report
Research Report | By Eva Gencheva, Christina LaRocque
FW Cook’s 2019 Top 250 Report is the Firm’s 47th annual report on long-term incentives granted to executives at the 250 largest U.S. companies in the S&P 500 Index.
2019 Annual Incentive Plan Report
Research Report | By Tom Kohn, Joe Sorrentino
FW Cook’s 2019 Annual Incentive Plan Report focuses on annual incentive plan design practices among the largest 250 companies in the S&P 500 by market capitalization. While designs vary between companies and industries, some common themes among the Top 250 companies were observed.
California Conforms to Section 162(m) of the Federal Tax Code
By Dina Bernstein, Samantha Nussbaum
For federal tax purposes, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, enacted in 2017, resulted in significant changes to Section 162(m) of the Internal Revenue Code. Notably, this eliminated the qualified performance-based compensation exception to the $1 million annual limitation…
Using Sustainability Metrics in Incentive Plans
The overarching goal of incentive compensation plan design is, of course, to incentivize management to focus on value creation for shareholders. Recent developments concerning corporate “sustainability” suggest that compensation committees of public company boards of directors…
