Pay

Corona Capital: Private jet deal

17 Dec 2020

Concise views on the pandemic’s corporate and financial fallout: Blackstone bets that plutocrats will be back in the air before the rest of us.

Hut Group’s long-term pay plan is far too short

19 Nov 2020

The recently listed beauty tech firm’s boss Matthew Moulding is 900 mln pounds richer after meeting bonus targets. But the company’s shares only needed to rise 30% for him to do so, and he can sell his shares in March. It’s a pretty odd way to design a long-term incentive plan.

Chieftain’s golden cuffs put Wells Fargo in a bind

16 Nov 2020

Charlie Scharf got a $44 mln package for joining the scandal-plagued bank as CEO a year ago. As the company’s stock has halved, so has the value of his sweet hello. Other bosses are in similar pickles, but few have so much on their plate, or so little room for renegotiation.

Corona Capital: U.S. state budget woes

20 Oct 2020

Concise views on the pandemic’s corporate and financial fallout: Some conservative U.S. states are hurting as much as liberal New York.

Corona Capital: Palantir presents

9 Sep 2020

Concise views on the pandemic’s corporate and financial fallout: Potential shareholders have had their first look at the data company ahead of its planned direct listing later this month. One of the more memorable moments was boss Alex Karp making his pitch from a nature trail.

GE bonus reset doubles down on bad corporate habit

21 Aug 2020

Its stock having tanked, the U.S. conglomerate has replaced Larry Culp’s original sign-on bonus with one that has much less ambitious share price targets. The award was already flawed – putting in a lower hurdle in a strong stock market makes everything worse.

Wall Street pay heads towards danger zone

17 Jul 2020

Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan socked away at least 33% more for investment-bank bonuses after bumper results last quarter. It looks reasonable given revenue gains. But huge paydays on the back of Fed largesse in an economic slump risk a return to public opprobrium.

Wirecard is argument for a Big Four pay clawback

30 Jun 2020

Audit giant EY is embroiled in the German scandal after signing off accounts when $2 bln was missing. Remedies like splitting bookkeeping from consulting or using two auditors may focus minds on finding frauds. But until pay is linked to clean accounts, scandals will continue.

Corona Capital: ZoomInfo IPO, U.S. trade

4 Jun 2020

Concise views on the pandemic’s corporate and financial fallout: ZoomInfo goes public with a big pop despite Covid-19; and America’s goods-trade deficit with Europe will test Washington’s mood.

Corona Capital: Bank fears, Payments M&A, Coal

2 Jun 2020

Concise views on the pandemic’s corporate and financial fallout: A new U.S. regulator wants cities to reopen to prevent bank robberies. Western Union may bid for struggling rival MoneyGram. And the pandemic is hastening the decline of U.S. coal.

How Goldman Sachs walked into a pay trap

29 Apr 2020

CEO David Solomon’s $27.5 million package for last year is deservedly in the crosshairs at this week’s shareholder meeting. Goldman’s problem is the method rather than the magnitude, which isn’t out of whack with rivals. Still, it might want to borrow some of their good habits.

CEO pay sacrifices could use a pinch of altruism

9 Apr 2020

Disney, HSBC and Solvay are just a few big companies where bosses are volunteering pay. Solidarity with staff, prudence ahead of government bailouts and dwindling cash are the key motivators. Real generosity will need to come from those that are thriving amid the crisis.

BoE leaves bank traders’ virus paydays in limbo

1 Apr 2020

The Bank of England expects Barclays, HSBC and Standard Chartered to show restraint on future payouts. It’s ambiguous, but enough to worry bankers who profited handsomely from market moves in March. Unless the pandemic ends quickly, big bonuses will be hard to justify next year.

Buyout barons will be next to face pay backlash

6 Jan 2020

Private-equity managers can earn more than company CEOs or bankers, whose remuneration has drawn most scrutiny in recent years. The $4 trln industry is now too big to stay under the radar. A surge in company failures would make well-paid dealmakers easy targets for politicians.

Review: An economic paradigm for ordinary people

6 Dec 2019

Nicholas Lemann’s “Transaction Man” shows how the post-1980 move from stable institutions to a deal-oriented economy benefited the rich and disempowered the rest. Active interest groups and pluralism could redress the balance. So would smaller businesses and lower overheads.

Bankers’ pensions are a sideshow in CEO pay row

27 Nov 2019

Lloyds may slash Antonio Horta-Osorio’s retirement allowance to 15% of base salary, from 46% previously. As with Standard Chartered’s Bill Winters, a cut was overdue. Still, bank bosses’ pay lags that of housebuilders and oil majors. Investors’ energies are better focused there.

GM strike deal brings less relief than expected

16 Oct 2019

That’s because the month-long walkout didn’t hurt much. Union politics, chest-thumping by both sides and shareholder complacency prolonged talks that should have been more or less a formality. Workers suffered, but investors didn’t care much. GM got lucky with the timing.

Viewsroom: General Motors strike runs on hot air

10 Oct 2019

Workers downed tools over three weeks ago, despite last-minute concessions by the U.S. carmaker. Job-security fears are a sticking point. So is the union’s need to prove its worth after a kickbacks scandal. Plus: U.S. basketball plays smart defense on China’s Hong Kong backlash.

GE makes its own old age a bit more comfortable

7 Oct 2019

The indebted $75 bln U.S. conglomerate’s halt on defined-benefit pensions will make 20,000 employees’ retirements less flush. CEO Larry Culp’s transfer of value from workers to investors is awkward, but necessary – it makes GE’s debt more predictable as well as more manageable.

College football learns to play by market rules

3 Oct 2019

Young U.S. athletes generate $1 bln in revenue for their governing body – yet their rewards are tightly capped. When demand is high and the supply of elite talent low, as in football, something has to give. A new California law is a nod to what other industries realized long ago.