Compensation Peer Groups at Companies with High Pay

IRRC Institute and PROXY Governance - Jul 24, 2010

This report identifies a subset of S&P 500 companies with high pay that is not aligned with high performance. Based on new compensation disclosure requirements by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the data reveal that high executive pay companies self-select larger than appropriate peers ­ in terms of market capitalization and revenue ­ for compensation benchmarking purposes. These companies also compensate chief executive officers (CEO) an average of more than double, or 103 percent, above the median of the self-selected peer group.