From the category archives:

Stock Options

RIM’s $77 Million Black Eye

February 5, 2009

We said a while back that there would be more surprises coming out of Research In Motion’s options backdating scandal.  A big one came today. Two years ago, I raised a number of concerns about Research In Motion’s corporate governance, describing it as a relic of the past.  As its backdating scandal unfolded, I expressed serious [...]

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What Shell is the CEO Bonus Under at Lehman Brothers?

June 25, 2008

It rather neatly illustrates the farce that CEO pay has largely become when Lehman Brothers chief Richard S. Fuld, Jr. announces that he will decline a bonus this year. The board compensation committee has not yet met to determine if one would even be offered to him. But that probably is just a formality because [...]

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Outrage of the Week: When Subprime CEOs Dissemble Before Congress

March 9, 2008

Never in modern business has so much been given to so few for such colossally failed results. In just five years, these three CEOs made more than $460 million while leading their companies into the greatest losses in their history. One of them, Charles O. Prince of Citigroup, even got a bonus of $10 million, [...]

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RIM’s Real Stock Option Problem: Maybe It’s Giving Out Too Many

November 24, 2007

When a board gets to the point where it feels it needs to have a widespread automatic stock sales program, maybe it’s a sign that it’s giving out way too many stock options to insiders I’ve been receiving a number of calls from the press regarding Research In Motion’s new automatic stock selling plan for [...]

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Cisco Restocks

November 19, 2007

The Cisco move is just the latest example of companies that put too much time and creativity into dreaming up elaborate financial schemes —schemes which, by some remarkable consistency of nature, always wind up adding to the CEO’s pay package. I am not a big fan of company stock repurchasing. While I am the first [...]

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New Posting on Harvard Law School Blog

November 1, 2007

The corporate governance blog of Harvard Law School is running another guest column by me, this time on the Countrywide Financial meltdown. I introduce some issues about the company’s decidedly subprime corporate governance and CEO compensation practices which have not been raised anywhere before, except at Finlay ON Governance, as our consistently astute readers already [...]

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Countrywide Posts Record Loss After CEO Cashes In

October 26, 2007

Earlier in October we commented on Countrywide Financial CEO Angelo Mozilo’s accelerated sale of shares gained from a generous stock options program. We thought the timing was interesting and noted:

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In Praise of the Fedora CEO

October 18, 2007

CEOs today make an estimated 400 to 500 times the average U. S. worker. When they made just 40 times the average paycheck five decades ago, and apparently had about one-tenth the incentive they have today, it makes you wonder how anything important got done. They just helped to change the world. That’s all. “It [...]

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SEC Probes Countrywide CEO’s Stock Sales

October 17, 2007

The SEC has apparently commenced an informal investigation into Countrywide Financial CEO’s sales of stock in recent months.   Angelo Mozilo’s miraculous sense of timing captured our attention at Finlay ON Governance. We’re glad the SEC has been watching too.

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