— Alvarez & Marsal

Stanford Graduate School of business , and the Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford University , on the impact of COVID-19 for executive compensation in 2020 , as well as actions that could be taken in response going forward .

In a study conducted by the Corporate Governance Research Initiative at the Stanford Graduate School of business and the Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford University , titled ‘ Sharing the Pain : How Did Boards Adjust CEO Pay in Response to COVID-19 ?’, the report identified three actions taken by 2,980 Russell 3,000 companies in response to the impact of COVID-19 :

1 . Altered CEO salaries : among those that altered CEO salaries , 424 companies reduced their salary rate , while 17 deferred the payments , and 21 exchanged salary for equity .

2 . Changes to annual bonus : less frequent than altered salaries , 92 companies made changes to annual bonuses . Of those 92 , 44 companies reduced the current or previous years payments , 17 deferred the payments , and 10 exchanged cash for equity .

3 . Amended long term incentive programs ( LTIPs ): few of the Russell 3,000 companies ( 33 ) made changes to their LTIPs . Of those 33 , nine reduced the target value , nine adjusted award vehicles , eight changed the metrics to award LTIPs , seven changed LTIPs to a retention award , and one changed LTIPs to a discretionary award .

35 businesschief . com