Goodyear Vote and the Timeliness of Analysis

The Corporate Library Blog today carries a great post, Inflated CEO pay at Goodyear Tire. Good puns and even better information on CEO Robert J. Keegan’s “maximum payout for a net loss.”

Mr. Keegan received four separate stock option grants. The largest of the four market-priced grants, almost 500,000 of them, was at $4.81. Less than six months later he’d made $6.23 million worth of notional profit on that. This is just irresponsible, and it’s taking advantage of a super-low stock price to grant any stock options at all in such circumstances. It’s virtually impossible NOT to make money in such a situation.

This is Paul Hodgson writing in excellent form, including his conclusion that “it might even be time to vote against Denise Morrison, Rodney O’Neal, Craig Sullivan and Thomas Weidemeyer,” members of Goodyear’s compensation committee.

I’ve only got one complaint. The meeting is tomorrow; for many, voting has already ended. Hopefully, those who subscribe to “Board Analyst,” or other services at The Corporate Library, got this analysis earlier. However, I see, as reported by ProxyDemocracy.org, CalSTRS voted in favor of compensation committee members, so I’m left wondering if timeliness is a frequent issue during the busy proxy season.