Philly CEO That Provides Best Bang for the Buck Isn’t from Comcast or Aramark
Comcast CEO Brian Roberts (left) and Aramark CEO Eric Foss.
With many questioning the high salary of CEOs — especially since the economic collapse of 2008 — more and more companies are tying pay to performance. So the Wall Street Journal compared CEO pay to shareholder value in an attempt to find the best performing chief executives.
The Journal reports that all 10 of the CEOs with the best shareholder returns got raises in 2014, but two of the 10 worst performers also saw pay increases — including the lowest ranking CEO on the list.
Here’s more:
Only one of the 10 highest paid CEOs ranked among the top 10% by investor performance in the survey, conducted by the consultancy Hay Group. That was Brent Saunders, chief of Actavis PLC, which has since renamed itself Allergan PLC.
Meanwhile two of the 10 best paid CEOs—Viacom Inc.’s Philippe Dauman and General Electric Co.’s Jeff Immelt—got higher compensation even though the value of their shareholders’ investments in the company fell.
Steven Collis, CEO of AmerisourceBergen.
In the Philadelphia region, the CEO providing the best bang for the buck is Steven Collis of AmerisourceBergen. The leader of the Chester County drug wholesale titan reigned over a company that provided 28.2 percent shareholder return while his pay fell 17.5 percent from a year ago. (He still earned $9.9 million in 2014.)
Comcast‘s Brian Roberts also performed well. He saw the cable giant’s shareholder return rise an impressive 16.9 percent while he raked in $33 million, a 5.1 percent increase from a year ago.
Here’s how all the local CEOs on the list fared:
| Shareholder Return | CEO | Company | Total Pay | One-Year Change in Pay |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28.2 percent | Steven Collis | AmerisourceBergen | $9.9 million | -17.5 percent |
| 17 percent | Ellen Kullman | Du Pont | $14.3 million | 1.3 percent |
| 16.9 percent | Brian Roberts | Comcast | $33 million | 5.1 percent |
| 13.1 percent | Dennis Glass | Lincoln National | $12.2 million | 0.1 percent |
| Not listed | Eric Foss | Aramark | $32.4 million | 79.4 percent |
Here are the top five CEOs based on shareholder return. Interestingly, three of them run airlines.
| Shareholder Return | CEO | Company | Total Pay | One-Year Change in Pay |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 292 percent | John Standley | Rite Aid | $8.3 million | 6.5 percent |
| 142 percent | Mark Durcan | Micron Technology | $11.5 million | 66.1 percent |
| 126 percent | Gary Kelly | Southwest Airlines | $5 million | 23.9 percent |
| 114 percent | Douglas Parker | American Airlines | $12.3 million | n/a |
| 81 percent | Richard Anderson | Delta Airlines | $17.6 million | 22.4 percent |
And now, the worst of the worst.
| Shareholder Value | CEO | Company | Total Pay | One-Year Change in Pay |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| -26 percent | Steven Farris | Apache | $10.2 million | -9.0 percent |
| -36 percent | Richard Adkerson | Freeport-McMoRan | $10.1 million | -81.7 percent |
| -45 percent | Thomas McInerney | Genworth Financial | 2.7 million | -77.5 percent |
| -49 percent | Philip Asherman | Chicago Bridge & Iron | 14.3 million | -2.9 percent |
| -60 percent | Steven Newman | Transocean | 14.2 million | 2.2 percent |
