Golden Parachutes Leave Investors Fearing Conflict of Interest

Executives who negotiate sales of their companies are often pulling the cord on ever-expanding golden parachutes, a compensation trend that irks opponents of outsize CEO pay.

Critics fret that large change-in-control bonuses can encourage executives to make deals that might not be best for shareholders. “It can provide an excessive incentive to enter into a merger,” says Brandon Rees, deputy director of the Office of Investment for the AFL-CIO in Washington. “That much money can be hard to resist.”

One attention-getting payment flowed from April’s $15 billion takeover of Jarden Corp. by fellow U.S. consumer goods conglomerate Newell Rubbermaid. Jarden founder, executive chairman and former CEO Martin Franklin’s golden parachute was worth $180 million, Boca Raton, Florida–based Jarden said in a proxy, most of it stock compensation.

That sum is the largest change-in-control package granted to an executive of a publicly traded U.S. company since at least 2005, according to Equilar, a compensation consulting firm in Redwood City, California. The previous record was the $164.5 million payout to Gillette Co. CEO James Kilts in 2005, Equilar reports.

最近几个月的Jarden不是唯一的公司，以奖励谈判合并的高管。

David Pyott.，前首席执行官allergan.，在都柏林宗教的Actavis之后被授予价值12660万美元的转型控制支付买根据监管申请，他的Irvine，加利福尼亚州的药品公司的药品公司为705亿美元，以705亿美元。根据去年9月提交的代理提交的代理人，Scott McGregor的Golden Carachute of Semogry Maker Broadcom公司的官方首席执行官，价值1.95亿美元。加利福尼亚州的新加坡和圣何塞 - 总部位于2月份的加利福尼亚州的欧文购买370亿美元。

公司考虑金色降落伞对工作做得很好的奖励。例如，在乔登，在富兰克林的任期期间飙升的股价。Adjusted for splits, the company’s stock was trading at less than $2 when he took over as chairman and CEO in 2001. The merger with Atlanta-based Newell Rubbermaid valued Jarden at $60 per share, a 24 percent premium over its 30-day average price as of December 11.

更改控制软件包旨在推动CEO才能由股东执行。如果行政长官仅安排合并失去工作，那么思考就会，他可能永远不会招聘出价。股东可以拒绝合并，如果他们认为金色降落伞过度，虽然尚未发生这种情况。

但补偿看门狗说，包装已经增长了，他们可以歪斜高管谈判合并的决定。

“金帕拉chutes have long been a thorn in the side of shareholders and employees,” the AFL-CIO’s Rees says. “It’s basically a transfer of value to executives.”

Despite increased scrutiny from investors and the media, change-in-control packages remain generous. For executives at the 200 biggest U.S. companies, the average total value of a golden parachute was $30.3 million in 2015, up slightly from $29.9 million in 2013, according to New York–based professional services firm Alvarez & Marsal.

虽然公司已经将CAPS放在薪酬和奖金部分的变更控制包中，但股票补偿占狮子的富缴纳的份额。在Jarden的情况下，富兰克林的金色降落伞包括1.5亿美元的库存支付。

“Companies are setting limits on the golden parachutes,” says Paul Hodgson, a principal at South Portland, Maine–based consulting firm BHJ Partners. “But it seems to me the outcome is the same.”

Jarden通知金色降落伞的股东与三月代理人的纽厄尔·橡皮罩有关，并指出伊恩阿什肯总统承诺8490万美元，首席执行官James Lillie将获得8430万美元。总而言之，对Jarden的六大高管的转型支付总额达到近4亿美元，这是公司向股东发出警告的方式。

“Jarden股东应该了解并考虑到某些牛头董事和行政人员在可能不同或除了牛头股股东的利益以及可能产生潜在的利益冲突的合并交易中的事实“公司在代理中说。

尽管令人事会，股东最终投票赞成了合并，导致了一家名为Newell品牌的合并公司。但是Jarden的控制控制包裹提出了另一个棘手的问题：他们允许高管兑现股票奖励，如果公司实现雄心勃勃的财务目标，才会获得股票奖项。

Investors such as the $187 billionCalifornia State Teachers’ Retirement System对加速股票补助进行持怀疑态度的眼睛。“CalSTRS supports golden parachutes that are not excessive in absolute amount or relative to the total transaction value and do not include auto-acceleration of unvested equity awards,” says spokesman Ricardo Duran, referring to golden parachutes in general and not to Jarden’s payouts in particular.

富兰克林的金色降落伞包括其他津贴，例如在科罗拉多州阿斯彭，卡索纳的500万美元折扣和牛肉拥有物业的权利，售价290万美元。Such benefits should make shareholders wary of efforts to pad change-in-control compensation, the AFL-CIO’s Rees says: “It’s almost an admission that these perks weren’t necessary in the first place, and they were just there to feather the executive’s nest.”

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