Latest Insights & Industry Trends

In this article written for WorldatWork's Workspan publication, we outline the important aspects that should be taken into consideration to ensure an IPO is positioned for...

Dear All,  It’s hard to believe the holidays are around the corner and soon we will be gathering with family and friends to celebrate and wrap up 2018! Here at NFPCC are excited to celebrate Thanksgiving, one of our favorite holidays, and are grateful for all of you and the...

In July 2010 Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act; primarily, as a response to the financial crisis of 2007-2009. A key provision under Dodd-Frank requires public company directors to determine if the company’s compensation and...

Introduction We are now in the 8th year of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (“Dodd-Frank”). Among other things, the implementation of Dodd-Frank meant the majority of public issuers had to learn to navigate the waters of shareholder advisory...

Is gender pay equity gap as big of an issue in 2018 as it has been in previous years? We are all told that gender pay equity is measured on the same scale, but in reality the gap virtually disappears when analyzing the same level, company, and function. Most articles cite “The...

Dear All, We hope you are staying cool and enjoying vacations with your families. The start of school is around the corner and just like the kids, we too are gearing up for the busy fall season.   In this edition of the L-Blast we have some great articles to share with you...

NFP Compensation Consulting provides the salary data for the Dallas Business Journal’s annual analysis on the highest-paid public company CEOs in North Texas. Click here to read the full...

NFPCC's President, Chris Crawford, was recently quoted in a Bloomberg article by Liam Denning entitled, "A Tiny Gas Firm's Big Lesson on Bosses' Pay." Denning explains how Comstock Resources exemplifies the skewed incentives in the E&P...

Dear All, Summer is around the corner as another school year comes to an end and with it the first proxy season requiring CEO pay ratios. As I mentioned in a recent HBJ article, the really interesting use for the pay ratio will come in three to five years, when a given company...

NFPCC was recently invited to participate in Tudor Pickering’s 2018 Hotter N’ Hell Conference. Dan Pickering quizzed NFPCC’s Chris Crawford on recent executive compensation trends in the energy sector. Here are just a few highlights from that “fireside chat”. Q: It...

Dear All, Spring is finally here and with it the first CEO Pay Ratio disclosures of 2018! Although we are still in the early stages of proxy season, we are already seeing eye-catching data for the newly required pay ratio disclosure. It will be interesting to see how this...

Dear All, It has been a long, cold winter and we are ready for Spring and some much needed sunshine! Proxy season is in full swing and we at NFPCC have been busy helping our public clients with proxy and CD&A disclosures. Compensation decisions don’t end with the numbers...

We would like to share this article by the Washington Post with our readers, along with insight on the subject of salary shaming from one of NFPCC's founders. Here are 4 “predictions” from our company's President, Chris Crawford, related to CEO Pay and this article: CEO...

Dear All, We are well into the start of the new year and although 2018 has greeted us with some extremely cold temperatures that paralyzed our city for a couple of days, we at NFPCC have hit the ground running and are gearing up for proxy season. In this first L-Blast of 2018...

As we all know, both the House of Representatives and Senate voted to pass the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act legislation and sent it to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for the President’s signature. While it will take more time for the country’s citizens and corporate world alike to truly...

“I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity”. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Executive compensation practice and application is continually developing based on proxy advisory firm...

Dear All, It’s hard to believe the holidays are upon us, but what an exciting time it is for our great city of Houston as the Astros compete for their first World Series title! We may be champions by the time this hits your inbox, but whether we win or not, we are proud of...

There was an article titled “Decoding CEO Pay” recently published in Harvard Business Review, and in our opinion here at NFP Compensation Consulting, Messrs. Pozen and Kothari have some valid points, and many that are not so valid. It appears they found a few unique, obscure...

Today we are sharing this article from the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation with helpful information to our readers. Even though director compensation programs look quite similar from company to company, the primary difference between...

It’s that time of year again as we enter the final quarter of a compensation cycle and the beginning of a new football season, with renewed hopes that this is your team’s year. With this entry into salary planning time for the general employee population, HR departments are...

Just last month, NFPCC’s “CEO Pay Ratio - Winter is Coming” article summed up the latest on the controversial pay ratio rule. This month, we dive into a related subject by taking a peek back in time to the mid-1970s. This past week, a 1977 Wall Street Journal article was...

“Winter is coming” – a household phrase for those familiar with the Game of Thrones television series and book adaptation. Applied in the context of corporate issuers – CEO Pay Ratio is coming! Are you prepared? Are you familiar with how to run the calculation? Do you...

Carefully drafted incentive compensation plans can improve executive loyalty. It's a good idea to make sure your executives are protected, and there are a lot of variables to consider in putting together incentive compensation plans. This article discusses options like cash or...

The Say-on-Pay failure rate is the lowest it's been since voting began in 2011. According to this Semler Brossy chart, the failure rate is at 0.6%, and only seven Russell 3000 companies have failed thus far in 2017. Need help preparing for the next annual say on pay vote? Ask...

We found and wanted to share this recent Forbes article rehashing an interesting discussion from five leading governance experts on the topic of effective governance strategies. While concluding that best practices are not “one size fits all”, the article highlights some key...

There's a new revenue recognition standard that could affect compensation and bonus plans. These plans are made over many years, and the ways of measuring and the timing of recognition of revenue change. Determining compensation incentives that reward real growth will require...

One of the biggest issues facing boards today is setting goals for incentive plans. How do companies find that balance between motivating executives, aligning with the company's strategic goals, and satisfying shareholders? This article by ClearBridge analyzed the goals for...

Board independence is an increasing focal point for investors, proxy advisors and corporate issuers, especially now as companies go through their annual shareholder meetings. With that in mind, we thought this article from the Financial Times relevant for our community as it...

We believe this article by Harvard regarding cybersecurity for boards is worthwhile for our readers. When it comes to the board's role in risk oversight, it is imperative for directors to stay ahead of the curve. Since it can be difficult to identify upcoming risks, this article...

We found this article and thought our readers might be interested in why executive pay gets a bad rap. The media typically looks at a total compensation number and reports it without the appropriate context, so it’s easy to understand why executive pay is often...

This article is about executive compensation being highly controversial with most Americans feeling that CEO compensation among large publicly traded corporations is a problem. This article goes in depth to discuss how executive compensation practices have changed in the recent...

Harvard Law's Board Practices Study focuses on traditional board issues and also those which have recently heightened shareholder interest in the boardroom. Governance continues to evolve, but investor focus has been placed on the role of the board as the company's...

We came across a recent report that we thought would be interesting to our readers. With the debate growing on whether or not TSR measures are the best approach for performance-based long-term incentives, this study highlights and discusses some other metric alternatives and...

While pay isn’t the only way to attract, retain, and motivate employees, the demand for transparency from shareholders and increased regulations have put executive pay under more scrutiny than ever before. This article reinforces that properly designed pay packages are...

NFP Compensation Consulting' President, Chris Crawford, was quoted in the Houston Chronicle's recent article entitled, Four Houston Oil Companies Lifed CEO Pay in 2016. He states, "2017 Proxy statements are being filed, disclosing executive compensation for the last year. Trends...

With the 2017 proxy season upon us, this article from Boardroom Resources discusses best practices for communicating two critical components within the CD&A: peer group selection and board composition. While there’s no one-size-fits-all approach for either disclosure, this...

"Compensation committees face a full agenda in the first quarter of every new year. We outline four guiding perspectives or data points that all committees should consider as they set compensation goals. Now in the thick of Q1, compensation committees tend to find themselves...

Interesting article. However, a few additional points to complete the compensation picture. One, there is no reference to actual pay received as tied to stock price performance. Rather, this is a reference to the summary compensation table. Added, the summary compensation table...

The following excerpt was taken from a Harvard Business Review article in March of 2017. How do you think boards should evaluate themselves? "The New York Stock Exchange requires that the boards of all publicly traded corporations conduct a self-evaluation at least annually to...

"When an organization fails because of executive malfeasance, it generates a lot of attention. But such situations are actually relatively rare. It’s much more common, though less talked about, for organizations to fail because of ungoverned incompetence. That is, someone does...

"In the next four years, nonprofit boards will face exceptional challenges affecting long-term financial and operational sustainability. It is likely that governmental grants will substantially decline. Business/individual donor gifts can be reduced should the economy teeter...

"Nearly half of S&P 100 companies included information in their proxy statements that showed how they responded to shareholder concerns and made changes to policies, according to a new report from Equilar, Innovations in Proxy Design, featuring commentary from Donnelley...

"Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) can create significant value for shareholders. Accordingly, bank executives should be rewarded when completing and integrating successful transactions. However, in today’s environment of heightened executive pay scrutiny, some approaches to...

"Overseeing a company is no small task. Disruptive technologies are changing corporate business models, geopolitical turmoil is impacting supply chains and investment opportunities, and increased regulatory complexity is affecting innovation. Institutional investors and...

"Donald Trump will order a sweeping review of the Dodd-Frank Act rules enacted in response to the 2008 financial crisis, a White House official said, signing an executive action Friday designed to significantly scale back the regulatory system put in place in 2010. Trump also...

Our consultants took a keen interest when the IRS updated its golden parachute payment qualification requirements. Our 280g calculation & qualification experts continue their advisory role for businesses including audit support for CPAs. Check out these IRS audit tips from BNA...

"The Commission adopted the pay ratio disclosure rule in August 2015 to implement Section 953(b) of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The rule requires a public company to disclose the ratio of the median of the annual total compensation of all...

Paul Gryglewicz, a senior advisor at Global Governance Advisors, shares his thoughts and advice on how to increase shareholder engagement in preparation for Say on Pay votes. "2017 marks a milestone year in terms of Say on Pay in the United States, as the first six-year 'say...

"Board of Directors pay continues its upward trend according to a study published by Total Compensation Solutions (TCS). The Board compensation report shows increases of approximately 7 to 8 percent from last year for annual retainers for the Chairman, and Regular Board Members...

Companies, shareholders and boards of directors want to ensure alignment of pay and performance to justify the often-high accompanying price tag of executive compensation. To provide context on the correlations between awarded, realizable and actual pay earned under...