Take the money while it’s there. That’s what a handful of insiders at WellPoint Inc. decided in
the past month as they sold off nearly 150,000 company shares for gains of more than $3 million.
While transparency is a stated goal of many corporations, deliberations regarding distribution of shareholder property
to executives are not subject to light of day or to review. Instead, decision-making is camouflaged by
thousands of words that appear substantial but disclose little.
The folks who control executive compensation are often executives themselves. Boards must realize that their self-dealing,
self-benefiting ways are grossly out of line with the true value of one’s contribution to a business and society.
The city’s third-largest law firm is poised to tie the knot with Kentucky’s Greenebaum Doll & McDonald. But differences in the way the firms compensate partners are taking longer than expected to sort out.
An exaggerated share of the nation’s wealth is paid to CEOs of public companies, their minions and directors, through agreements
made inside boardrooms, by highly compensated individuals who commit shareholders’ money and are not subject to effective
oversight.
For investors, 2008 was the worst year since the Great Depression. Even so, more than half of the state’s public-company executives
saw the value of their pay packages rise from 2007—despite the fact that only 10 of the companies posted a positive total
return in 2008, and 46 companies shed more than one-third of their stock market value.
Barney Levengood, executive director of the financially-struggling Capital Improvement Board, is one of the state’s highest-paid public employees, and some wonder if his pay should be cut.
The economic downturn has provided shareholders an opportunity to press for change
on a variety of corporate governance issues.
The wages paid by a company to its employees are a distinctly private matter.
Tim Durham is facing allegations of self-dealing after a publicly traded company he helps run in Dallas acquired assets from
a finance company he owns in Ohio.
Free marketers cringe at the thought of government interference, but the fact is that the taxpayer is now a significant shareholder in a number of financial businesses.
Most public companies say they tie executive compensation to performance, but an IBJ review of pay data from 65 Indiana-based
firms shows otherwise. Last year, more than two-thirds of Indiana-based public companies saw their share prices decline, yet
many continued to award eye-popping compensation to their executives.
Seven Indiana public companies not only own corporate jets, but also let their executives use them for personal trips. Cummins
Inc., Hillenbrand Industries Inc., Zimmer Holdings Inc., Eli Lilly and Co., NiSource Inc., WellPoint Inc. and 1st Source Corp.
all allow some personal use of company jets.
Eli Lilly and Co. stock has returned just 1 percent per year in the nine years since CEO Sidney Taurel took office. Meanwhile,
Taurel has taken home $44 million in pay and been given stock options valued at $114 million more. But most Lilly shareholders
aren’t raising a call for Taurel to hit the trail.
