TheCorporateCounsel.net

May 19, 2017

Pay Ratio: Are You Banking on a Repeal?!?

I worry that some companies might be relying on Congress to step in and delay the implementation of the pay ratio rule. That’s looking less likely by the day. So the time that you have to prepare is narrowing.

It’s also far from clear whether the SEC would take action to delay implementation of a rule required by Dodd-Frank. Then-Acting SEC Chair Piwowar’s re-opening of comments earlier this year did not result in an outpouring of complaints from companies. Beyond 13,000 form letters in favor of pay ratio disclosures, the SEC received about 180 comment letters – of which only about 15% were against the rule. In this blog a few months ago, I linked to some of the comment letters from specific companies. And Ning Chiu blogged yesterday about a specific comment letter.

Our upcoming “Proxy Disclosure/Say-on-Pay Conferences” will comprehensively cover what you need to be doing now to implement pay ratio – with 20 panels spread over two days. Many of the panels will be drilling down into pay ratio issues. Act by June 9th for a 20% early bird rate. You can attend in-person in Washington DC – or watch by video online.

Pay Ratios: The Risks

Here’s an excerpt from this article by Alex Edmans:

I strongly believe that executive pay should be reformed. My own research demonstrates the substantial benefits to firms of treating their workers fairly. However, disclosure of pay ratios may have unintended consequences that actually end up hurting workers. A CEO wishing to improve the ratio may outsource low-paid jobs, hire more part-time than full-time workers, or invest in automation rather than labor. She may also raise workers’ salaries but slash other benefits; importantly, pay is only one dimension of what a firm provides. Research shows that, after salary reaches a (relatively low) level, workers value nonpecuniary factors more highly, such as on-the-job training, flexible working conditions, and opportunities for advancement. Indeed, a high pay ratio can indicate promotion opportunities, which motivates rather than demotivates workers. A snapshot measure of a worker’s current pay is a poor substitute for their career pay within the firm.

The pay ratio is also a misleading statistic because CEOs and workers operate in very different markets, so there is no reason for their pay to be linked — just as a solo singer’s pay bears no relation to a bassist’s pay. This consideration explains why CEO pay has risen much more than worker pay. As an analogy, baseball player Alex Rodriguez was not clearly more talented than Babe Ruth, but he was paid far more because baseball had become a much bigger, more global industry by the time he was playing. Even if the best player is only slightly better than the next-best player at that position, the slight difference can have a huge effect on the team’s fortunes and revenues.

I agree with some of what Alex says – but he also doesn’t understand that boards can take internal pay into consideration as just one factor in their decisionmaking. And instead of comparing pay ratios of different companies – a company should just be looking at its own pay ratio over an extended period (ie. decades).

In fact, one reason why a company should be doing this internal look is that comparing a CEO’s pay package to peers is a primary cause of how we got into this mess in the first place – peer group benchmarking where CEOs got paid in the top quartile for years & years…

Pay Ratio: From the ’77 Archives

Hat tip to Deloitte Consulting’s Mike Kesner for sharing this 1977 WSJ op-ed from Peter Drucker on the notion of pay ratios. Executive pay was considered excessive even back then!

Broc Romanek