In the News

Reuters
Krawcheck seen bidding final adieu to Wall Street
  September 9, 2011

Regardless of where she goes, Krawcheck will likely be spending several months working out her severance.  At a minimum, according to Bank of America's 2010 proxy filing with regulators, Krawcheck will receive between $2.4 million and $4.7 million in stock grants if she is let go -- at a time when BofA shares are worth about half their trading value at the end of 2010.

Based on her past history and that of other fired executives, Krawcheck could take home as much as $5 million to $10 million after negotiations, although Bank of America's parlous financial state may make a monster payout tough.

"Ten million wouldn't sound ridiculous in the old world, but we are in a very different world now and the bank is talking about laying off over 40,000 people," said Steven Hall, managing director of Steven Hall & Partners, a New York-based executive compensation consultant.

Krawcheck's full severance will depend on whether her departure is characterized as an involuntary termination without cause or a workforce reduction.

"That's the starting point for the negotiations," Hall said.  "Her lawyers will probably ask for something much higher."



Compliance Week
Companies Prepare for Executive Pay, Performance Disclosure
  August 2, 2011

In the next few months the Securities and Exchange Commission is scheduled to propose rules stemming from the Dodd-Frank Act requirement that companies disclose "information that shows the relationship between executive compensation actually paid and the financial performance of the issuer," known as "pay for performance."

Steven Hall, managing director at pay consulting firm Steven Hall & Partners, says that a simplified, communicable strategy is the best approach.  Everyone involved in the company, from the compensation committee to investor relations executives, should work together to ensure shareholders understand fully the company's compensation structure and performance metrics, he says.  "Start by educating your shareholder now through CD&A," Hall says.

By understanding the relationship between performance metrics used and compensation, shareholders will have a better picture of how company determines executive pay.  Hall says although the SEC has yet to implement the rule and it may not be in place for next spring's proxy statements, companies should be given compensation performance measures in CD&A next year anyway.  He urges companies to consider including data on revenue and profit growth and shareholder return, along with non-financial goals, such as plans for the company's development.

"Nobody really knows what the SEC wants to do at this point," Hall says.  Part of the problem, according to Hall, is the difficulty in interpreting the regulation and identifying the requirement of financial performance in legal terms.  Measuring compensation against financial performance will eliminate qualitative consideration from the picture, he explains, and not everyone will like that.  "I believe that what we are going to see are some adjustments by the SEC to incorporate relevant business measures in the performance; both financial and qualitative," he says.



Business Today
Never A Good TIme
  July 19, 2011

When negotiating executive compensation, most firms evaluate the political realities surrounding the decision, said Steven Hall, managing director of Steven Hall & Partners, an executive compensation firm.  But unlike measuring the market rate, predicting political fallout is more of an art than a science, Hall said.  He said he has recommended executive compensation packages to boards in industries that rely on government contracts who summarily rejected them out of fear that they would look bad to lawmakers.



INDYSTAR.COM
Simon offers CEO $120M to stay
  July 9, 2011

Is the promise of $120 million enough to keep you on the job for eight more years?

That's what Simon Property Group has offered David Simon if he stays on as CEO for that long at a company that his father and uncle founded.

"It is very, very substantial," Steven E. Hall, managing director of Steven Hall & Partners in New York, said of the incentive award.  "They are really putting their money where their mouth is and finding a way to keep him engaged."

And, said Hall, "They are certainly making a very strong commitment that Mr. Simon is the right person to lead the company into the future."



St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Executive pay rebounds with performance But the biggest hikes had more to do with special circumstances
  April 17, 2011

Companies really mean it when they say pay for performance, says Steven Hall, managing director at consulting firm Steven Hall & Partners in New York.  "2010 was a year when profits rebounded quite a bit, and companies when they set their budgets may had expected life to not quite be that good," he said.

As of early April, Hall says, "say on pay" resolutions had passed at 223 companies and failed at five.

The voting requirement, Hall says, is forcing firms to do a better job of explaining their pay practices.  Some are also doing things like making stock grants forfeitable when performance lags, trimming severance packages and eliminating red-flag perquisites like country club dues.



Los Angeles Times
Disney Withdraws Executive Tax Benefit Amid Criticism
  March 18, 2011

Just days before investors would have their say on Walt Disney Co.'s executive pay, the entertainment giant changed the contracts of its top executives to remove a generous perk that had come under fire from an influential shareholder advisory firm.

Institutional Shareholder Services, an advisor to large shareholders, had recommended voting against the compensation packages of Iger and the others that would have required Disney to reimburse the executives for an excise tax.

"It's interesting that they ended up caving," Steven Hall, managing director for compensation consultant Steven Hall & Partners, said about Disney.  "We were surprised by how violently they reacted against ISS.  It was the kind of thing companies gripe about in boardrooms but don't do anything about."



NetworkWorld
Perks Shrink, But Tech CEOs Aren't Ready to Fly Coach
  March 17, 2011

Executive perks are a lightening rod for shareholder criticism, and many tech companies are cutting back on CEO extras to avoid a negative outcry.  But some perks -- like personal use of corporate jets -- are proving hard for executives to relinquish.

A big driver of perk reductions is the new "say on pay" rule, which requires public companies to seek approval of their compensation plans via shareholder vote.

"Say on pay" has been "a very scary development" for most compensation committees, says Nora McCord, managing director at Steven Hall & Partners, an executive compensation consulting firm based in New York.  While the result of a say-on-pay vote is non-binding, "It has served to ratchet up even further the focus on compensation issues in general, and most specifically, the hot-button issues like perks," McCord says.



Reuters
Regulators Seek to Foil Moves to Undermine Pay Reform
  February 8, 2011

Regulators began their most forceful attempt to clamp down on bank bonuses since the 2007-2009 financial crisis, and warned firms they would seek to counter attempts to circumvent the reforms. 

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp endorsed on Monday a proposal that executives at the largest financial institutions, such as Bank of America and Goldman Sachs, have half their bonuses deferred for at least three years. The U.S. proposal tackles pay for top executives at financial companies with $50 billion or more in assets, including JPMorgan Chase & Co and Morgan Stanley.
 
"This proposal is kind of catching up with what companies are doing right now anyway," said Joseph Sorrentino, managing director at compensation consulting firm Steven Hall & Partners.



Bloomberg Businessweek
Goldman's Pay Pool Shrinks Fastest as Traders' Fortunes Dwindle
  November 3, 2010

Wall Street traders, who typically receive the fattest year-end bonuses among bank employees, are poised to suffer the biggest pay cuts as revenue at their divisions dropped an average of 12 percent so far this year.

Not everyone sees the decline in traders' pay this year as a symptom of a long-term change in compensation.  "Assuming we're headed back into economic growth phase, we'll look back at this and it will be a total aberration," said Joseph Sorrentino, managing director at compensation consultant Steven Hall & Partners, LLC in New York.  "I do get the sense that once we have a rebound that these positions are going to return to their previous levels."



USA Today
Board Members' Raises Not as Juicy as They Used to Be
  September 17, 2010

Companies' rank-and-file share something with the boards of directors, who now are being asked to do more without big raises.

Lacking larger pay increases, more qualified board members will question whether they should continue the job as the demands rise.  Companies that wish to attract and retain experienced directors will likely need to offer raises soon that make it worth their while.

Due to this competition for qualified directors, Joe Sorrentino of Steven Hall & Partners expects select board members to receive larger raises next year.  But only if companies perform.  "We'll likely see more increases, but only if it's a better economy," he says.



guardian.co.uk
Costcutting US bosses earn 42% more than rivals, says IPS research
  September 1, 2010

A report by the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) will conclude that US chief executives shared little of the pain felt further down their workforces as house prices slumped, consumer spending dried up and unemployment peaked at 10.2% last year. 

Joe Sorrentino, an expert at pay consultants Steven Hall & Partners in New York, pointed out that bosses can face difficult decisions in cutting workforces for the good of their companies: "Making decisions that are right for a company as a whole can, unfortunately, lead to job losses.  That's not a great outcome but it's the reality at this point in the economy."



guardian.co.uk
Occidental faces battle with investors over executive pay
  August 3, 2010

One of America's highest-paid corporate bosses, the Occidental Petroleum chief executive Ray Irani, is facing a rebellion over his multimillion-dollar salary from two maverick investment funds, in a sign of mounting impatience in US business circles over boardroom pay and bonuses.

Joe Sorrentino, managing director at Steven Hall & Partners, a New York pay consultancy, said: "There is a trend in terms of compensation being scrutinized more closely these days - particularly when the stock market is not performing well."



Boardmember.com
Annual Meeting Excitement:  Shareholders Say No with Say-on-Pay
  May 17, 2010

Annual meeting season provides media fodder year after year.  From directors who were no shows at their annual meeting, to shareholders scalping tickets to the annual meeting, something surprises each year.  Right now, the hot annual meeting chatter is that two companies that provide their shareholders and stockholders an advisory say-on-pay have had their pay voted down.  Executive compensation expert Pearl Meyer, Senior Managing Director, Steven Hall & Partners, was somewhat surprised by the votes at Motorola and Occidental Petroleum, "because it's precedent setting.  After last year's say-on-pay votes in favor of management, this was a surprise."



STLtoday.com
Recession also taking a bite out of executive pay
 April 18, 2010

Companies have always paid lip service to the principle of pay for performance, but when the economy was strong, the rising tide seemed to lift all yachts.

"I think pay for performance has improved during the last few years," said pay consultant Joseph Sorrentino, managing director at Steven Hall & Partners in New York.  "It's not perfect; it probably will never be perfect ... but there have been a lot of improvements and changes in programs that have better aligned pay with performance."



Agenda
American Express Moves More Toward Fixed Pay
  March 22, 2010

The American Express board has pushed its executive compensation structure more toward fixed pay.

Financial companies over the last year or so have been moving away from the traditional financial services comp design, which includes relatively lower salaries and bonuses that are multiples of salary, says Joseph Sorrentino, a managing director and compensation consultant with Steven Hall & Partners.  This has been driven by general pressure on financial services companies to identify and try to limit any perception of, or potential for, excessive risk, Sorrentino adds.



The New York Times
ALL BUSINESS:  Big Pay for CEOs Turning Consultants
  February 27, 2010

Tough job market?  Not for corporate honchos who snag cushy consulting deals at their former companies for $3,000 an hour.

"These arrangements ensure that the executives don't walk across the street to work for someone else," says Nora McCord of the compensation consulting firm Steven Hall & Partners.



The Money Times
Goldman Sachs CEO gets $9 million bonus for 2009
  February 6, 2010

Lloyd Blankfein, the chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs, received a stock-based bonus of $9 million, an amount considerably less than expected, for the year 2009.

Joseph Sorrentino, a managing director at Steven Hall & Partners LLC, a New York-based executive compensation consulting firm opined, "They're trying to be cognizant of public perception.  It's more reflective of the current environment rather than performance."



Bloomberg
Bank of America to pay bonuses of more than $4.4 billion
  February 4, 2010

Bank of America Corp, the nation's largest lender, will pay investment-banking employees bonuses of about $4.4 billion for last year, or an average of $400,000 each, a person close to the bank said.  Around 95 percent will be paid in stock vesting over three years.

"Those sound like the numbers we'd expect from Wall Street firms," said Steven Hall, managing director of New York-based Steven Hall & Partners, an executive compensation consulting firm.



Bloomberg.com
CIT Group Plans Interim Replacement for CEO Peek
  January 15, 2010

CIT Group, Inc., the century-old commercial lender that emerged from bankruptcy last month, plans to name a temporary replacement for Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Peek after he steps down.

The next chief inherits a firm that's still shut out from the commercial paper market, CIT's traditional source of funding.  Peek led CIT as it expanded into subprime lending and plunged into Chapter 11.  The firm's recovery plan depends on tappping CIT's federally insured bank unit and may face resistance from U.S. regulators.

"I wouldn't want to be the recruiter trying to fill the position," said Joe Sorrentino, a managing director specializing in the financial services at Steven Hall & Partners, an executive compensation consultant.  "It's one thing to deal with a bankrupt company, but it's quite another when you have the government involved." 



BusinessWeek
Bank of America May Trim Cash Part of Bonuses to 15%
  January 13, 2010

Bank of America Corp., the biggest U.S. lender, plans to cut the cash component of investment bankers' bonuses to about 15 percent as politicians seek to rein in the payouts, four people familiar with the matter said.

"This will be poorly received by younger people who haven't accrued as much capital as the top executives with many years of good earnings," said Pearl Meyer, senior managing director of Steven Hall & Partners LLC in New York.  "Wall Street firms have been telegraphing this to their employees for a long time."



Reuters
Will Hearings Alter Big Bonuses?  Pay Experts Say, "No."
  January 13, 2010

The public flogging Wall Street's elite are taking over their fat bonuses at Wednesday's Senate bank hearings may shame them into a show of remorse, but will it convince them to slash their pay?  Most pay experts say,"No."

Pearl Meyer, senior managing director at Steven Hall & Partners in New York, doubts there will be an industry shift toward paying bonuses from all-cash to paying bonuses from restricted stock for all its employees due to the way its people are paid.

For example, the head of a large business unit might earn $250,000 to $350,000 base salary, but the real payday comes from the annual bonus, which can be in the millions or tens of millions -- usually in cash.  By changing to restrictive all-stock bonuses, she said, "you'll be cutting into people's current income, a portion of which they've been living on for the past year."  There's also an underlying assumption that when the stock vests its price will reflect the company's long-term performance.  "Both are very difficult barriers in terms of employee retention and motivation," she said.



Bloomberg
Spending Bonus Cash Becomes Risky as Clawbacks Spread
  January 8, 2010

Clawbacks have been a "silent partner" of some employment agreements since the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which stipulated that chief executive and chief financial officers could have their bonuses taken back due to financial restatements or misconduct, said Steven Hall, managing director of New York-based Steven Hall & Partners, an executive compensation consulting firm.



BusinessWeek
JPMorgan Assails U.K. tax, Sparks Canary Wharf Doubt
  December 29, 2009

JPMorgan Chase & Co., Chief Executive James Dimon, whose bank had promised to build a European headquarters in London, told U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling a 50 percent tax on bonuses would unfairly penalize the U.S. lender, a person close to the firm said.

Financial firms are threatening to leave the U.K. because they say increased taxes and regulation make London less attractive.  Shifting business centers elsewhere is "one of the sticks they'll use to try and fight this legislation, but in the end how realistic is it? said Joe Sorrentino, managing director at executive compensation consultant Steven Hall & Partners specializing in financial services.  "This is a people buiness.  How do you get your talent, if they're U.K. based, to move to other countries?"



The New York Times
Goldman Top Executives to Take Bonuses in Stock
  December 10, 2009

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. plans to pay top managers their 2009 bonuses in stock, rather than cash, as it seeks to deflect outrage over a near-record pay haul months after it repaid billions of dollars in taxpayer aid.

Other banks are likely to follow Goldman's lead, said Joe Sorrentino, a compensation consultant with Steven Hall & Partners in New York.

"I think they're leading the pack here.  Based on their prestige in the industry and their size and reputation, I wouldn't be surprised to see other companies, the Wall Street firms, carry that forward and adopt certain provisions," Sorrentino said.



Forbes
France Weighs Gender Quotas for Company Boardrooms
  December 5, 2009

Globally, the number of women comprising company boards remains dismally low.  But with France's new legislation submitted to the French parliament this week, that might be able to change.  Under the legislation, women would have to comprise 50% of board members by 2015 with companies ramping up their quotas by meeting smaller targets along the way.

Meanwhile, Pearl Meyer a partner at Steven Hall & Partners who advises boards about executive compensation believes the U.S. will never turn to "quotas to fill board seats."

"Nevertheless, boards are being pushed to look beyond chief executives or university presidents -- the old traditional choices -- to fill board seats today -- which give female candidates down the ranks more of a shot."

Meyer also believes that France's proposal would significantly quicken women's advancement.  "If French companies need women directors, they're going to promote up management ranks, so they're qualified," says Meyer.



Reuters
Wall Street Pay Wrath Thrusts Directors in Spotlight
  October 23, 2009

Outrage over the lavish compensation that Wall Street has awarded itself for doing a crummy job is likely to increase the focus and burdens on the people who set and monitor how pay is doled out:  corporate directors.

"They are now even more concerned about doing a good job and the reputational risk if they don't," said Pearl Meyer, co-founder of Steven Hall & Partners LLC in New York, who has advised boards and management on executive pay for more than 30 years.  "What is happening at the board level is a significantly increased time commitment."



Harvard Business Review
The Coming Battle Over Executive Pay
  September, 2009

Whether the changes that take place next year are voluntary or mandated, the more intersting question is, Will any of this matter when the economy recovers?

Steven Hall, an executive compensation consultant who advises boards of directors, hopes the issue will blow over when the economy turns around.  "When boards of directors ask me, 'How do I ensure that I'm not going to be criticized for my compensation recommendations?' my answer is, 'Make sure the company performs well.'"



Baltimoresun.com
Legg Shareholders Urged to Withhold Votes over Executive Bonuses
  July 27, 2009

Two proxy advisory firms are recommending Legg Mason shareholders withhold votes for three directors who sit on the compensation committee because it awarded bonuses to top executives even though the Baltimore money managers reported a net loss for the fiscal year ending March 31.

While not commenting directly on Legg's situation, Pearl Meyer, senior managing director of executive-pay consulting firm Steven Hall & Partners, said similar proxy recommendations on pay practices are not unusual, especially as executive compensation has become source of shareholder concern in recent years.  Moreover, proxy firms have their own executive-pay standards and principles they follow.

Still, such moves are largely symbolic.  "In all instances that I could recall, directors are generally re-elected unless there is egregious transgression," Meyer said.



Investment News
Compensation for Board Directors Decreased in 2008, Survey Says
  July 23, 2009

Compensation for directors of the 200 largest public companies dropped to an average of $244,899 in 2008, reflecting a 2.4% decline from $250,835 in 2007, according to a new study.

It wat the first decline in five years, according to the study, released today by Steven Hall & Partners LLC, a New York-based executive compensation consulting firm.  Still compared with 2003, the directors' pay packages in 2008 grew 38.6% over five years.  That surpasses compensation for chief executives, which grew 17.4% over the same period.  There is a lot of competition for top Board talent considered to be experts," said Michael Sherry, a consultant at Steven Hall & Partners.

"For example, every audit committee is required to have at least one director who is deemed a financial expert.  These companies are looking for people who can bring something to the table, and they are willing to pay for it."

Last year's decline in compensation was a reflection of the troubled economy and decline in stock prices, Mr. Sherry said.  The use of board meeting fees, in which directors receive per-meeting fees for attendance, also declined:  37% of the companies surveyed paid such fees in 2008, down from 68% in 2003. 

"With board meeting fees going out of vogue, companies have consciously shifted value into directors' annual retainers, both cash and stock," Steven Hall, managing director of Steven Hall & Partners, said in a statement.



Workforce Management
Firms Get Good News as Pressure Mounts on Exec Comp Disclosure
  July 13, 2009

Amid increasing pressure about disclosing more information on how they determine their top executive's pay, companies got a bit of good news this month when the Securities and Exchange Commission proposed its new rules.

Under the proposed rules, companies would disclose the full grant-date fair value of equity awards for the year of the grant, meaning that it would be clearer how much that executive made in stock options that year.

"It is a very good idea to revert to the original rule because we will then be able to relate the amount of compensation awarded to that executive's performance," said Pearl Meyer, senior managing director with Steven Hall & Partners, a New York-based executive compensation consultant.

Other rules that the the SEC is looking at would require companies to increase their disclosure around the performance metrics they use in setting up executive compensation.

"That's definitely the most controversial of all the proposed rules," Meyer said.



Wall Street Journal
The Raise and Fall of Wall Street Bankers
  July 2, 2009

Congress want to lower Wall Street bonuses, blaming them for encouraging the excessive risk-taking that helped cause the financial crisis.  But the haphazard way that pay practices are being altered may yet yield the worst of all worlds, higher fixed costs and less accountability, without removing the threat of talent walking out the door.

A perverse outcome of the Wall Street crisis is that compensation as a proportion of revenue could actually rise.  Pearl Meyer, of Steven Hall & Partners, estimates that Wall Street pay may end up topping 60% of revenue for the forseeable future, up from about 50% in past years.  It could hit 70% at some smaller financial firms, she said.



Bloomberg.com
Obama Pay Plan Lacks 'Meat on the Bones' to Trim CEO Paychecks
  June 11, 2009

The Obama administration's pay proposals may lack the "meat on the bones" to rein in firms accused of overpaying executives.

The administration proposal, which needs congressional approval, would authorize the Securities and Exchange Commission to require so-called say-on-pay, a nonbinding shareholder vote on compensation including salary, bonuses and stock awards for the top five executives at public companies.

Steven Hall, managing director at Steven Hall & Partners LLC, a New York-based compensation consulting firm, said the vote requirement may complicate pay decisions.  "At what point does a non-binding vote become binding because you can't ignore it anymore?" he said.



Wall Street Journal
New Pay Guidelines Raise Questions
  June 10, 2009

The Obama administration outlined its new approach to executive pay Wednesday, with tough restrictions on firms receiving large amounts of government aid, but only suggested guidelines for most other companies.

The new approach is "a win for most affected businesses," predicted Steven Hall, a managing director at Steven Hall & Partners, an executive-pay consultancy in New York.  "They're going to be able to attract and retain talent without artificial limits on how they pay people."

He expects financial service firms to continue offering executives restricted shares without performance triggers, a popular industry practice.  Mr. Hall expects fewer companies to provide "golden parachutes" or supplemental pensions for departing executives.  But he said some companies dropping supplemental pensions may grant executives extra cash or stock "to make up the difference."

Mr. Hall and others expect the seven companies receiving "exceptional assistance" from the government to face big challenges recruiting and retaining executives.  Kenneth Feinberg, the administration's new pay czar, will have authority to review, reject and even set up pay for the top 100 earners at those companies:  American International Group Inc., Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., General Motors Corp., GMAC LLC, Chrysler LLC and Chrylser Financial.

Among other things, Mr. Hall anticipates many of these companies will eliminate retention bonuses and exit packages.  More top executives "will be pushed out with no severance," and others will quit because "they aren't used to this level of oversight [and] limitations on their pay," he suggested.



Bloomberg.com
Banks Repaying TARP to be Freed of Bonus Curbs Imposed by Dodd
  June 10, 2009

JPMorgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and the eight other banks cleared yesterday to repay their U.S. government rescue money will be freed from legal limits on bonuses for their top 25 employees.

"Stronger companies may really look to shore up their talent pool with top players and the place they'll go hunting for them is companies with TARP restrictions," said Steven E. Hall, managing director of New York-based Steven Hall & Partners.



Bloomberg
Goldman Shareholders Suffered as Blankfein Earned $43 Million
  May 28, 2009

The AIG bonuses earned the company a rebuke from Obama, who in February called them "inappropriate."

"The populists urge is going to have a great impact on how we run our companies," says Pearl Meyer, senior managing director of New York-based compensation consultant Steven Hall & Partners LLC, which advises financial companies on pay issues.  "I fear the unintended consequence will be the loss of good people we need.  How long do you want to be regarded as a scoundrel?"



Associated Press
Changes May be Afoot in '09
  May 1, 2009

CEO pay fell in 2008, but will the pullback last?  The answer hinges on whether corporate boards make changes now to keep compensation at less stratospheric levels for the long term.

For critics of high executive pay, this is the year when public and political anger has lined up firmly on the side of reform.  But those involved in setting pay -- directors, lawyers and consultants, among others -- face the genuine challenge of retaining and attracting top executive talent without fueling an even greater backlash against CEO pay.

"It comes down to balancing what is the right thing to do for the company, and having to look over your shoulder at what the shareholders and the media think,"  said Steven Hall, who runs a compensation consulting firm.



BusinessWeek.com
Countering CEO Disengagement in the Age of TARP
  April 17, 2009

With many organizations set to reexamining the metrics used to determine CEO compensation, and with the turmoil over executive compensation in general, it's definitely enough to be of concern to CEOs, says Pearl Meyer, the senior managing director at Steven Hall & Partners, an executive compensation consulting firm based in New York City, who adds that "I don't necessarily think executive pay will decrease significantly."

Of course, it wouldn't hurt if the general public's image of CEOs could somehow be rehabbed, says Meyer:  "Many people have the wrong image of CEOs, that they're flying in corporate jets and are in the lap of luxury.  The reality is these people are in the hot seat, working strenuously to turn their companies around."



American Banker
With Exec Pay Standards, Level Field Possible
  April 6, 2009

When it comes to attracting executive talent, the playing field between the major banks that have accepted taxpayer money and those that have not -- in the United States and in most financial centers abroad -- may be leveling.

At last week's Group of 20 summit in London, the international body agreed on principles governing executive compensation that would apply to banks both foreign and domestic, regardless of whether a bank has obtained taxpayer assistance from government programs and thus been forced to restrict compensation.

Compensation consultant Pearl Meyer, a senior managing director at Steven Hall & Partners in New York, said adoption of the guidelines in the United States could lead to bonus formulas that better balance individual or department performance goals with company wide goals and could also boost base salaries at banks and financial services companies.

"The concept of low salaries and high incentive pay was based on the desire of the financial services community to keep fixed costs down.  But what happened was, they kept salaries so low they they were artificial, and people's expectations were that they would receive at least 25% to 30% of their bonuses regardless of how the firm did," Meyer said.  "So a lot of incentive compensation in financial services was not truly variable."



InvestmentNews
Planning Perks for Top Execs are on the Chopping Block
  March 29, 2009

As bailed-out financial institutions take more heat over the massive pay packages dished out to their executives, a key fringe benefit usually awarded to top officers -- the financial planning perk -- appears to be on the chopping block.

Bank of New York Mellon Corp., Wells Fargo & Co. and SunTrust Banks Inc., for example, have elected to stop subsidizing the use of financial planners for their top executives, according to an InvestmentNews analysis of some of the first 2009 proxy filings.

While its still early in the proxy season, observers suggested that these banks' actions could foreshadow a larger move away from providing executives with financial advisers.

"It's hardly a surprise, and I'd be shocked if more companies didn't follow their lead," said Pearl Meyer, a senior managing director at new York-based compensation consulting firm Steven Hall & Partners LLC.  "Any perk that doesn't have a clear business rationale is under the microscope at the moment."



MSNBC.com
AIG Flap Heartens Critics of High Pay
Critics hope backlash will pressure other companies to curb payouts
  March 20, 2009

Even those who favor leaving pay practices in the hands of the private sector concede that this may be a year of relative restraint.

Steven Hall, managing partner of the executive compensation consulting firm Steven Hall & Partners, said there are several reasons pay packages will be lower this year.  For one thing, companies that may receive government aid in the future are going to be concerned that they will either be forced to rescind the money or be lambasted for the payouts, he said.  For another, those that aren't receiving government aid will worry about public outcry -- and shareholder resentment -- over rewarding executives handsomely in a year when most companies' share prices have fallen sharply, many have reported disappointing earnings and layoffs are common place.  "We know that the world is reacting negatively to those things," Hall said.

A tough business climate also likely made it harder for executives to meet their goals for this year, which could crimp pay that was based on meeting certain performance targets.  Still, Hall doesn't expect the cutbacks to last once the economy starts to recover and business starts to rebound.  "For general industry, I think pay will come back," he said.  On Wall Street, however, Hall expects that compensation will not return to the levels it hit before the financial crisis altered the industry, perhaps for good.  "Wall Street bonuses are going to be lower than they were because the business is different," Hall said.  "The world has changed for them."



New York Times
The Case for Paying Out Bonuses at A.I.G.
  March 17, 2009

As much as we might want to void those A.I.G. pay contracts, Pearl Meyer, a compensation consultant at Steven Hall & Partners, says it would put American business on a worse slippery slope than it already is.  Business agreements of other companies that have taken taxpayer money might fall into question.  Even companies that have not turned to Washington might seize the opportunity to break inconvenient contracts.

If government officials were to break the contracts, they would be "breaking a bond," Ms. Meyer says.  "They are raising a whole new question regarding trust and commitment."



Reuters
Citi Guarantees Bonuses for London Hires
 March 14, 2009

Citigroup, a U.S. bank that has received $45 billion (32 billion pounds) from taxpayers since October, is paying multimillion-dollar guaranteed bonuses to salesmen and traders it has hired in London, people familiar with the matter said.

"Paying guaranteed bonuses in this environment is more of a minority practice... it will attract some scrutiny," said Joe Sorrentino, managing director at compensation consultant Steven Hall & Partners.  "But from the company's perspective, to be able to pay back the government, they have to have viable businesses and for that they need qualified people," he added.



Forbes.com
On Wall Street, sky-high payouts may fall to Earth
  February 21, 2009

Analysts believe that federal pay caps imposed on some of the highest-level executives, combined with public anger surrounding Wall Street bonuses, may very well trickle down to reduce the pay of employees at all levels of finance firms.

"It will have a deflationary impact on the organizations," said Pearl Meyer, executive compensation consultant with Steven Hall & Partners.  "At the lower level, you're hitting Christmas money with such cuts, along with home and car payments," Meyer said.



Corporate Board Member
Are These Great Times to Reprice
  First Quarter, 2009

After watching the stock market tumble about 46% from its October 2007 high to January 27 of this year, executives have been left with millions of stock options that are deep underwater.  Some compensation consultants anticipate a surge of repricing, with companies swapping worthless options for new ones whose prices are close to the stock's postcrash value.

Some 40 companies did just that in 2008 and Steven Hall, a compensation consultant at Steven Hall & Partners in New York City, thinks this is only the beginning.  "I believe the tidal wave will begin building in 2009, once people believe the markets have stablilized a bit," he says.  "There is nothing worse than deciding to do a recpricing, only to find that the new grant is underwater.  You only get one bite of the apple."



The Washington Post
How much again?  Figuring CEO paychecks can be a challenge
  February 12, 2009

Figuring out what and why a company is paying its top executives is no small feat.  A good place to start is the section labeled the compensation discussion and analysis.  "It basically takes the reader through the philosophy of a company, the different components of compensation, how they work, how they compare to the marketplace," said Steven Hall, managing director for pay consultancy at Steven Hall & Partners.



Wall Street Journal
Loopholes Sap Potency of Pay Limits
  February 6, 2009

President Barack Obama's crackdown on Wall Street pay contains loopholes, and may have limited impact in restraining compensation, according to some executive-pay consultants and management attorneys.

"You're going to have executives ask not to be called a senior executive," said Steven Hall, a New York pay consultant.  He warned companies not to play games because they will embarrass themselves before a hostile public and government.



BusinessWeek
Executive Pay:  Will the Big Bucks Stop Here?
  February 4, 2009

President Obama's new restrictions on the pay of bailed-out finance executives is likely to ripple across the broader U.S. economy, experts say.  But if the history of executive pay is any guide, it's more likely to influence how the money is doled out, not how much of it makes its way into the pockets of top brass.

Long term, though, bank executives could still do quite well.  Pearl Meyer, senior managing director at pay consultants Steven Hall & Partners, notes that the plan does allow for long-term grants of restricted stock.  Considering the low stock prices these banks currently trade for, that could represent a lot of upside.

Like many observers, Meyer thinks even non-TARP companies will embrace certain restrictions in order to seem in step with the frugality the public is demanding.  Severance packages should come down, and luxury perks such as company cars and lavish office redos are certain to be out, she says.  Companies are already reducing merit pay because of poor business performance.  Meyer's clients typically are cutting merit pay for all staffers from 3% or 4% of pay to 2%.

But the potential for long-term payouts on stock grants provided for in Obama's plan -- even though they won't come through until taxpayers are paid back -- provides a significant escape hatch for executives.  That's why Meyer doubts these rules set forth by Obama on Feb. 4 will drop pay over the long haul.

Every single endeavor by the government through legislation or regulation to limit executive or employee compensation has had the exact opposite effect," says Meyer.  "It has boomeranged."



USA Today
Washington Post
Bonuses no luxury for some Wall Street Workers
  January 31, 2009

Although many people might say good riddance to any defectors [unhappy with their compensation], executive compensation consultant Steven Hall argues that taxpayers should want banks to retain the cream of the crop given the federal government has become a shareholder in so many banks.

"The reality is good people will always be able to get a job someplace else if they are unhappy, Hall said.  "So do you want to own stock in a company that is filled with people who can't get a job anywhere else?"



Fortune.com
Postcards:  from the pinnacles of power by Fortune editor at large Patricia Sellers
You Lose Your Shirt?  CEOs did worse!
  January 22, 2009

You think you lost a bundle in the market?  The CEOs who lead the companies in the upper decks of the Fortune 500 have fared even worse:  Their stock holdings in their own companies declined in value by $54 billion last year.

A just released study by executive compensation consultancy Steven Hall & Partners sums up the damage.  For CEOs who head up 175 of the top 200 corporations in the Fortune 500, the median value of the equity held in their own businesses dropped 50% last year.

Steve Hall, managing director of Steven Hall & Partners, notes that equity compensation has long been viewed as the most direct approach to link executives' interests with their shareholders' -- and, he says, "the study confirms this total alignment."



BusinessWeek
Big Bonuses for CEOs?  Not so fast
  December 5, 2008

Board members know they're being watched, say many consultants who specialize in executive compensation.  In 2007, bonuses fell mostly on a company-by-company basis, says Steven Hall, managing director of Steven Hall & Partners.  "But, you're going to see everything down this year,"  Hall says, with "big time" declines in financial services and housing industries.

CEOs contemplating a job change "don't know if [they're] jumping from the frying pan to the fire," Hall says, adding that retaining execs could be a bigger issue when the economy recovers in two or three years.



Washingtonpost.com
Gannett's Chief Gives Himself a 17 Percent Salary Reduction
  November 5, 2008

Craig A Dubow, chairman and chief executive of the media giant Gannett, is taking a 17 percent salary pay cut as the company struggles with declines in advertising and circulation that prompted staff cuts this summer.

Steven Hall, managing director of the executive compensation consulting firm, Steven Hall & Partners, said some executives are moving to accept cuts now before the economy deteriorates further and bad news builds. 

"This is not a bad time to stay off the radar screen," he said.



Corporate Board Member
Managing Talent:  An expanding role for Boards
  November/December 2008

How do companies like Continental Airlines, Inc., Pinnacle West Capital Corp., and Verizon Communications Inc., to list just a few, get away with not having any compensation committee at all?

Actually they don't.  But they've given the committees that oversee executive pay and CEO performance a new name, human-resources committees, and expanded their responsibilities.

Directors want these committees' role in managing human capital to go deeper than the C-suite.  "They're concerned with the process below the officer level," says Pearl Meyer, senior managing director of New York City executive compensation consultant, Steven Hall & Partners.  "They've made it part of their purview."



ABC News
Casino King May Be Market's Biggest Loser
  October 28, 2008

America's billionaire chief executives, like other investors, have watched their net worth dwindle as chaos continues to dominate the stock market.  But one CEO's bet on his own company has made him one of the biggest losers.  Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson has lost more than $16.6 billion in the last 7 1/2 months thanks to investments in his own company.

According to analysis by Steven Hall & Partners, a compensation-consulting firm in New York, Adelson's investments in Sands Corp. plunged $16,640,655,613 in value between December 31, 2007 and Oct. 17 of this year.

He's in the gaming business.  He's gamed it all the way -- up and down," said Pearl Meyer, a senior managing director with the firm.



The Wall Street Journal
The Less Wealthy CEO
Buffett's Stake in Berkshire (on Paper) Falls $9.6 Billion; Ellison is Runner Up
  October 23 2008

The value of Mr. Buffett's equity in Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. declined more than that of any other big-name chief executive, according to an analysis by Steven Hall & Partners, a compensation-consulting firm.

Most of the biggest losers are founders or co-founders of their companies, except Mr. Buffett, who bought a controlling stake in Berkshire in the 1960s when it was a declining textile company.  Founders have seen larger declines because they tend to have bigger stakes in their companies than nonfounders, said Steven Hall, co-founder and managing director of Steven Hall & Partners.

Still, nonfounder CEOs have lost a bigger proportion of their equity values -- a median of 49%, compared with 25% for founder CEOs.  That is because nonfounder CEOs tend to have more stock options than founder CEOs, Mr. Hall said.  Many stock options are now worthless.

Collectively, the equity held by seven founder CEOs has lost $15.5 billion in value; the 168 nonfounder CEOs have lost $26.8 billion in value.  The median share price decline for all companies studied was 38% since the end of those companies' most recent fiscal years.

Despite the declines, chief executives still hold a lot of equity in their own companies -- a median of $2.8 billion for founder CEOs and 26.7 million for nonfoudner CEOs. "It's still a heck of a lot of money," Mr. Hall says.



BusinessWeek
Bank Rescue:  Making Wall Street Pay
  October 15, 2008

Pearl Meyer, senior managing director of executive-compensation consultant Steven Hall & Partners, says the most problematic provision in Treasury's rules may actually turn out to be vaguest:  The prohibition against incentives that "encourage unnecessary and excessive risks."

Particularly in the financial sector, the drive to link pay to financial performance has inextricably entwined risk and reward.  Who's to say until after the fact how much risk is too much?  Indeed, while companies in many other industries typically cap incentive pay in a given year, financial-services companies usually don't -- giving executives incentive to shoot for the moon.  "The more you make, the more you get," Meyer says.  "Doing that could be deemed to be encouraging risk, because it really is.  There's a tension in the system."



Reuters
CEO Pay Curbs Failed Before, May Fail Again
  September 25, 2008

U.S. lawmakers are insisting that Wall Street chiefs feel the pain in their own pocketbooks in exchange for a $700 billion bailout, but Washington has a poor record when it comes to trying to rein in executive pay.

"Efforts to curb CEO pay have never been successful," said Steven Hall, managing director of Steven Hall & Partners, an executive compensation consultant.  "Success lies in the governance process, where directors are responsible for stewardship of the company."



Wall Street Journal
Pay Packages for CEOs Likely to Spur Scrutiny
  September 9, 2008

Reducing the size of exit packages for poorly performing executives is difficult, said Pearl Meyer, senior managing director at New York compensation consultant Steven Hall & Partners.  Employment agreements typically lock in exit-pay terms unless the executives materially injure the company, she said.



Workforce Management
Market Slump Dragging More Stock Options Underwater
  September 8, 2008

Stock options are currently underwater at nearly 40 percent at Fortune 500 companies, compared with about one-third that had worthless options during the first quater, according to data compiled by compensation consultants Steven Hall & Partners.

"From a morale standpoint, and an employee standpoint, this has become a serious issue for many companies where options don't appear as if they'll emerge anytime soon," says Pearl Meyer, senior managing director at Steven Hall. "In some ways, they have lost the value of using company stock as a motivator for current workers."



Dow Jones News
DJ Survey Finds 22% Rise in Pay for Corporate Dirs in Past 3 Yrs
  September 2, 2008

Chief executives aren't the only board members getting a healthy raise:  Independent directors at the 250 largest U.S. companies have seen their pay rise by an average of 22% in the past three years, a new report finds.

Total remuneration for non-executive directors at the largest firms now averages $238,000 a year, up from $194,000 in 2004, according to the survey by Steven Hall & Partners, a New York compensation consulting firm.  At current rates, independent directors at such firms are pulling in more than $1,000 an hour.

Big gains in director pay have not been accompanied by an increase in the number of meetings that directors attend.  Instead, compensation experts say the increase reflects the fact that meetings are lasting longer and require more preparation, coupled with a move to pay directors a fixed annual sum, rather than reward them based on the number of meetings they attend.

"Gone are the days when the director appeared four times a year for lunch and a check," Pearl Meyer, principal at Steven Hall & Partners, said in a telephone interview.

Although large companies have moved from paying directors to attend board meetings, Meyer said there's no evidence that attendance has fallen off as a result, and offered one possible explanation, namely that "a director's seat is not as secure as it used to be."



Financial Week
More Pay Pals Get Pink Slips; Large companies are ditching conflicted comp consultants for independent advisors or disclosing more about fees, arrangements
  August 11, 2008

Dozens of the largest companies are now opting to hire independent firms that specialize in executive compensation, rather than using large firms that -- in addition to dispensing advice on executive pay -- can also provide other, more lucrative consulting services, such as human resources and benefits administration.

These changes are taking place at a time when lawmakers, in grand fashion, have been highlighting the potential for conflicts to arise if a compensation consultant's firm performs other work for the same client.

Because of this, executives at independent compensation firms like...Steven Hall & Partners... note that there has been, and will continue to be greater demand for their services.



Washington Post
Perks Still in Play But Sometimes Are Less Lavish
  July 28, 2008

Financial service companies were laregely rolling back executive fringe benefits in 2007.  But that doesn't mean they were insignificant.

"Investors don't want to see executives getting country club memberships, while their stock is dropping in value," said Steven Hall, managing director at executive compensation consulting firm Steven Hall & Partners.

Executive compensation experts said those programs -- until recently the fastest-growing fringe benefit -- make good business sense.  Executives' time may be better spent working than grappling with personal financial decisions.  Advisers "can explain the company's programs to the executive, explain what the executive is entitled to and how to get the maximum benefit out of it," Hall said.

Car benefits have been on the decline, Hall said, but drivers -- often considered necessary for security -- are still for chief executives.  It's common for companies to foot the legal bill for executives during employment negotiations.  "Many companies agree that the executives should be represented legally, and as a result they should be willing to pay for counsel for executives," Hall said.  "It's kind of like loading the gun against yourself."



CompensationStandards.com
The Consultant's Blog
  July 1, 2008
The Murky Crystal Ball:  Reconsidering Executive Pay Design by Pearl Meyer

As of the market close on June 23rd, 40.3% of the Fortune 500 companies' executive and employee stock options were out of the money by an average - 34.5%.  It also appears that many of their incentive plans - especially long term - are also underwater.

Looking ahead into my murky crystal ball, I am increasingly concerned that our current system of executive compensation is designed for an expanding economy, increasing profits and a climbing stock market, rather than businesses in difficult competitive shape relative to global competitors, a floundering market and a profit squeeze.

Absent the rosy world to which we have grown accustomed, can we continue to pay the same level of "target compensation" tied to modestly rising base salaries for lower levels of expected/target performance?

On the other hand, can we force feed performance targets that may be unrealistic in view of current business conditions and therby bring pay (and morale/motivation) down relative to results produced?  Clearly, substantive consideration of the issues involved is needed.



Fortune.com
Postcards:  From the pinnacles of power by Fortune editor at large Patricia Sellers
Power Point:  Cherish your name
  June 20, 2008

"As an executive, you have two resources:  your name or reputation and your remaining years of productivity -- which is a diminishing asset.  Women squander both."

Pearl Meyer, the veteran executive-compensation consultant, told me this over lunch Friday.  Women, she noted, tend to be lousy negotiators of both pay and title.  I told her I agree, though many women are this way, I said, because we tend to care less than men about rank and size and vertical power.  Meyer herself, flubbed big-time back in 2000 when she sold her company.  On the day she signed the papers to sell the business she started in 1989, Meyer was shocked to learn that her name was part of the sale.  Now she's managing director of Steven Hall & Partners and competes with Pearl Meyer & Partners, the firm that bears her name.



Financial Week
Workforce Management
Pensions for Execs Test New Heights; Company Size and Performance Not the Biggest Factors
  June 16, 2008

When it comes to executive pensions, the biggest packages sometimes are handed out at the smallest companies.

In many cases, comp experts explain, executive pensions are calculated using a formula that multiplies a CEO's years of service by a portion of their average compensation during a certain time period.  Steven Hall, president of Steven Hall & Partners, a New York compensation consultancy, said companies tend to determine this average compensation level by looking at three to five years of an executive's highest pay period - which can include both base salary and annual incentives.

"Indirectly, this can bring performance into the picture," Hall said.  "But pensions tend to be a reward for loyalty and service."



Directorship
Thought Leader:  'Golden Coffins' Come Back to Haunt Some Companies
  June 13, 2008

By Steven Hall

In recent days, we have been inundated with sensational coverage of lucrataive benefit packages to be paid to executives or their estates upon their death.  These so-called "golden coffins" are generally contractually stipulated arrangements that range from salary continuation and life insurance payments to accelerated vesting of equity, often a big-ticket item for long-tenured executives.

These arrangements are yet another example of how times are changing in the world of corporate governance.  It does seem that some of the most striking examples highlighted in recent media coverage are the result of legacy deals cut years ago, when decidions were based on well-intentioned business or estate planning goals which shaped such agreements.

It is a lost opportunity if companies do not take advantage of the CD&A to explain the rationale when such arrangements were made, why it made sense then, and, perhaps most importantly, why it continues to make sense now.



The Wall Street Journal
Companies Promise CEOs Lavish Posthumous Paydays
  June 10, 2008

You still can't take it with you.  But some executives have arranged for the next best thing:  huge corporate payouts to their heirs if they die in office.

Companies often say one goal of their pay packages is to keep executives from leaving.  But "if the executive is dead, you're certainly not retaining them," says Steven Hall, an executive-pay consultant in New York.

Mr. Hall says death benefits have become more controversial in recent years:  "Shareholders say, 'Why should we write a big check to a CEO who's been quite well paid all along?'  He should have bought life insurance."



CNNMoney.com
Multiple Trouble:  Share-Ownership Targets Get Harder to Hit
  May 27, 2008

Stock-market declines spell trouble for companies that require chief executives and board members to hold a fixed dollar amount of shares:  Some are falling short of ownership targets.

While ownership targets aren't mandatory, they score points with investors and corporate-governance ratings firms and are common at large U.S. companies.  Most ask executives and directors to hold company stock equal to five times their salary or retainer.  Some aim higher, requiring CEOs to hold up to 25 times more in shares as they receive in annual pay.

"That's tough to maintain in this environment," notes Pearl Meyer, co-founder of Steven Hall & Partners, a New York compensation consulting firm.  "A number of companies have put compliance in limbo."



FinancialWeek
Perks Wilting in the Sunshine?
  May 27, 2008

"Most boards and comp committees are looking at perks and asking, "How does this enhance an executive's performance or effectiveness?" said Pearl Meyer, senior managing director at compensation consulting firm Steven Hall & Partners.

"Most CEOs are already getting paid a good deal of money, and it's really difficult to rationalize expenses that don't increase shareholder value."



New York Times
SUITS
  May 18, 2008

When it comes to money matters, who better to steer professional women from common mistakes than Pearl Meyer, the executive compensation expert, or Alexandra Lebenthal, a third-generation investment adviser?

One of the biggest errors women make, Ms. Meyer said, is that they "undersell their value."  Ms. Lebenthal, meanwhile, cautioned that "even the smartest women, and even those who have conquered compensation, still take a back seat when it comes to investing."

Coincidentally, both Ms. Meyer and Ms. Lebenthal have the distinction of knowing what it's like to lose their names, professionally speaking.

When Ms. Meyer sold the firm bearing her name to Clark Consulting in 2000, she relinquished professional rights to her name, and co-founded a firm named for her longtime business partner, Steven Hall.



St. Louis Post-Dispatch
As share prices stumble, options leave top employees unsatisfied
  May 14, 2008

Stock options are great morale boosters when business is going well, but in a downturn they have their dark side.

The dark side shows up when a company's stock price falls far below the level at which it issued options to its employees.  Employees can become bitter, fixated on the pieces of paper that were supposed to be a reward but now will probably be worthless.

The options' existence can lead to increased turnover, according to Pearl Meyer, a principal at compensation-consulting firm Steven Hall & Partners in New York.  A key employee who leaves can have the satisfaction of tearing up the old, worthless options while receiving new, valuable ones from his or her new employer.

WIth the stock market down and the housing, financial and retail industries mired in severe slumps, the under-water options problem is widespread.  At about forty percent of big U.S. companies, Steven Hall & Partners says, the average option-exercise price is below the current stock price.



Treasury & Risk
New Challenges Shape Pay Levels
  May 2008 issue

These days, when Steven Hall sits down with his clients to hammer out the structure of their executive compensation plans, they take into consideration a new set of factors:  How it will look in the cold light of day on their proxy statements.  Thanks to the Securities and Exchange Commission's new rules requiring more disclosure of top executive's performance goals, including those of the CFO, a number of clients have started to think twice about just how shareholders might react to their bonus plans, according to Hall, president of Steven Hall & Partners, a New York executive compensation consulting firm.



Computer World
Tech company CEO compensation raises ire
  May 11, 2008

"Executive compensation is under attack and has been for a number of years," says Nora McCord, a consultant at Steven Hall & Partners, which specializes in executive compensation consulting.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has tried to compel companies to be more transparent about how (and how much) their top executives are compensated, implementing new rules in the past few years around what must be reported.

For example, the SEC now requires companies to not only disclose that a performance-based award is tied to revenue but also to disclose the dollar amount of the revenue target.

This is one of the more controversial new SEC regulations, McCord says.  "On the one hand, it's better for shareholders to know how company resources are being spent and how executives are being incentivized.  But on the other hand, you run into situations where a company might be giving guidance from an earnings management perspective."

Still most companies accept the idea of making CEOs and other top executives more accountable for their compensation, McCord says.

"It's a continuum.  We're still not where some of the more activist shareholders would like us to be, but we're moving in that direction,"  McCord says.  "The momentum is clearly on the side of more disclosure, greater transparency and a more rigorous approach to executive compensation in general."



Agenda
Disclosure of Performance Goals Up Sharply
  April 28, 2008

The new disclosure rules take too much discretion away from the compensation committee, says Steven Hall, managing director of Steven Hall & Partners, an executive comp consultancy.  The rules require so much disclosure that the markets are alerted not only to a company's specific targets but to whether an individual executive fell short of meeting them.

"We are concerned," says Hall, "that plans will start being designed to provide the investment community and media with positive input rather than provide appropriate incentives."



Financial Week
CEO pay way down, but top performers still fared well
While cash compensation declined overall, execs at top-performing companies saw bigger bonuses, analysis of proxies show
  April 9, 2008

Most chief executives and chief financial officers saw their cash compensation decrease last year but executives at top performing companies raked in substantially higher cash bonuses, according to an analysis of 2008 proxies by compensation consultant Steven Hall & Partners.

Among the 522 companies that have filed proxies so far this year, the median cash compensation paid to CEOs was $1.23 million, a 4.3% decrease from the previous year.  CFOs, meanwhile took home total cash compensation of $550,000, 1.4% less than they were paid last year.

But a closer look at the top-performing companies shows that their CEOs and CFOs were appropriately rewarded for a job well done, said Steven Hall, managing director and founder of the eponymous consulting firm.

Companies whose performance put them in the top quartile, realized growth of 77% in their median net income in 2007, as measured by Steven Hall.  CEOs at these companies were paid a median cash bonus of $663,286 last year, a 25% spike from the year before, which pushed their total compensation up 15% to $1.43 million.  CFOs at top quartile companies saw their cash bonuses jump up by 23%, to $293,645, driving their total compensation up 10% to $696,869.

Mr. Hall's analysis also showed that companies that fell into the bottom quartile for performance -- where net income decreased by at least 39% last year -- paid their CEOs median cash bonuses that were 72% lower, while CFOs were given cash bonuses that were 52% less.

At companies in the bottom quartile, many executives didn't get a bonus at all.  Almost a third of companies that Mr. Hall analyzed didn't reward their CEOs with any cash incentive last year.

"Boards are holding executives' feet to the fire," said Mr. Hall.  "They are making them accountable for their results and for delivering true performance, that much is clear."



New York Times
Executive Pay: A Special Report
A Brighter Spotlight, Yet the Pay Rises
  April 6, 2008

Wasn't 2008 supposed to be the year of the shareholder victory on the executive compensation front?

After all, tighter disclosure rules kicked in last year, and -- the theory went -- once companies had to shine a spotlight on their compensation practices, they were bound to make them better.

Some compensation consultants say the S.E.C. disclosure rules went too far.  Pearl Meyer, senior managing director at Steven Hall & Partners, suggest that executives who missed performance targets might still deserve hefty bonuses, if they managed to stem losses even as economic factors beyond their control -- say, soaring oil prices or a housing slowdown -- decimated their industry.  But, she said, it would be hard to lay out a cogent formula for that.  Thus, she concludes, making directors spell out the details of their compensation plans could force them toward rewarding conventional short-term performance.



Business Week
Directors and Investors at Odds on Performance-Based Pay
Two Camps disagree on whether the current executive compensation model is changing for the better
  March 28, 2008

Directors and institutional shareholders disagree on whether the current U.S. executive pay model is changing for the better.  But while the two groups are split on the pay process, both agree that the status quo is giving Corporate America a bad rap.

While the two sides of the battle may not see eye to eye on the issue, Pearl Meyer, senior managing director at comp-consulting firm Steven Hall & Partners, says directors are beginning to give more attention to CEO pay.  "You have directors out there who are far more diligent and far more committed on this issue, " Meyer says.  "It's a very thoughtful process now, compared to what I have witnessed in the past.  The older view was 'trust me,' and now it's 'show me.'"



The Wall Street Journal
Financial Firms' Stock Options: 'Half'Bad
 March 20, 2008

Fully 55% of the financial services and insurance companies in the Fortune 500 have stock options that are underwater, meaning the company's stock price is below the exercise price of the options, according to Steven Hall & Partners, an independent executive-compensation consulting firm.  That is up sharply from just two years ago, when just 10% of such firms had underwater options.



CNNMoney.com
Most Big Financial Firms' Stock Options are Underwater - Study
  March 19, 2008

Here is more bad news for financial industry executives: More than half of the Fortune 500 firms in the sector have issued stock options that are worthless at present, shown in a new study by Steven Hall & Partners, an independent executive-compensation consulting firm.

"There's a lot of pain being dealt out," Steven Hall, managing director at the New York firm, said in a telephone interview.

Repricing previously issued stock option grants could put options above water, but Hall does not expect that to occur very often, given companies' reluctance to seek shareholder approval for such changes.  Increasing the amount of stock option grants to offset the decline in stock prices could be a challenge for firms that don't have enough shares approved for that, in Hall's view.

"It's a depressing story, but it's not hopeless," Hall said, noting that holders of vested stock options typically have 7 to 10 years to exercise them."



Forbes.com
Much Ado about Nothing?
  March 7, 2008

The U.S. Congressional House Oversight and Government Reform Committee heard the testimonies of the most infamous chief executives of the past year:  Stanley O'Neal of Merrill Lynch, Charles Prince III of Citigroup and Angelo Mozillo of Countrywide Financial.  O'Neal and Prince resigned from their respective roles in 2007.  Mozillo remains at the helm of the mortgage lender he established.

Pearl Meyer, a consultant at the New York City-based Steven Hall & Partners, has firsthand experience at providing these corporate boards the guidance apparently being ignored or at least misused.  Meyer worked with Countrywide's board when she was with another consultancy firm, Pearl Meyer & Partners.  The relationship between the two companies fell apart in 2004 over a conflict concerning Mozilo's pay.  That exchange was documented in the congressional report.

"[Countrywide] were convinced they were doing the right thing, contrary to our recommendations," she said.



Financial Week
IRS Wants to Tax Golden Parachutes
  February 25, 2008

"its a chicken-and-egg problem," explained Steve Root, managing director at compensation consultancy Steven Hall & Partners.  "A termination provision that pays out regardless of performance can infect the status of a pre-termination award from being performance-based compensation."



The Indianapolis Star
Underwater Stock Options
Depressed share prices have left many corporate employees and retirees with what seems to be an empty perk
 February 24, 2008

... Thousands of Eli Lilly managers, executives and retirees are sitting on more than 88 million worthless options, more than any other large company in Indiana, according to executive compensation consultant Steven Hall & Partners in New York. 

Nationally, the picture is not much brighter.  At more than one-third of the corporations in the Fortune 500, stock options are underwater, according to Steven Hall & Partners.



CNNMONEY
Update:  Yahoo Change-in-Control Plans Cover All Employees
  February 19, 2008

Yahoo, Inc. will offer all of its employees enhanced severance packages -- worth up to two years' salary for top executives -- if they are laid off following a change in control of the Internet company.

Executive Compensation consultant Pearl Meyer, senior managaing director at Steven Hall & Partners, said the terms of the plan were "well within standard practice" for executives but she said it was unusual to apply a "good reason" walk-a-way provision throughout the entire organization.



Financial Week
Option Reprice Wave Battle
  February 18, 2008

With top executives and rank-and-filers at many U.S. companies holding now-worthless stock options, the time seems right for a round of of repricing.  New rules requiring companies to get the blessing of shareholders, themselves freshly gored by falling stock prices, will force boards to devise friendlier, or at least less objectionable, ways to pitch the controversial practice.

"It's an excellent time for companies to consider [the problem of underwaters] since annual shareholder meetings are right around the corner," said Pearl Meyer, senior managing director at compensation consultancy Steven Hall & Partners.

Stock options are underwater at 34% of the companies in the Fortune 500, according to Ms. Meyer.  The industries most underwater include home builders, health-care services, computers, media, financial services, retail and semiconductors.



Reuters
  February 12, 2008

Stock options are "under water" -- meaning the current price of the stock has sunk below the exercise price of the options -- at 34 percent of the corporations in the Fortune 500, according to a study from executive compensation consulting firm Steven Hall & Partners.

Pearl Meyer, the consulting firm's senior managing director, said the situation creates problems for companies in hard-hit sectors such as financials, retail, home building, pharmaceuticals, automobiles and airlines that have used stock options as a compensation and retention tool for employees.

Many companies "have senior executives, and, in some cases, all employees whose option grants over a number of years are all of a sudden worthless," Pearl Meyer said. 

When options are under water, companies risk the loss of talented executives who may jump ship to other firms that entice with the promise of new options priced at the market's current low prices, Meyer said.  But if companies try to keep currrent employees happy by giving out new options, they risk angering their shareholders, who also have been hurt by the market slide, she said.

Meyer said companies struggling with underwater options can take steps to help out employees such as doling out restricted stock, as long as the firms have the shares on hand to distribute.  Another option, she said, is to provide compensation through cash incentive plans.



Baltimoresun.com
Price's Gains Bring Big Pay
Top 3 leaders get $23 million
  February 9, 2008

Steven Hall, managing director at New York firm Steven Hall & Partners, which consults on compensation plans with boards, said its common for executive pay in the financial services and mutual fund industries to be heavily tied to individual and company performance.

"They pay the people who deliver the results," Hall said.  Few industries pay anyone more than the CEO.  It's unique to this business because they actually pay people based on what they deliver.


Forbes.com
Wall Street Job Hunters Hit A Buyers Market
  February 8, 2008

As banks forgo paying out bonuses and liquidate entire departments, it's a buyer's market on Wall Street.  But many bankers didn't seem to get the memo.

At the C-suite level, many firms are pulling out their Christmas wish lists as companies unable to pay top executives hemorrhage talent.  Steven Hall of Steven Hall & Partners, an executive compensation consultancy firm, likens the situation to sharks circling a wounded whale, as healthy firms poach C-suite talent from companies wounded by subprime woes.  "You'll see a firm pay out and put itself in a loss position just to keep its prime talent," Hall says.



The Washington Post
The Bonuses Keep Coming
  January 29, 2008

Some investment banks already have a list of people they would like to pluck from rival firms and are waiting for their employers to be in a tough position, said Steven Hall, managing director of Steven Hall & Partners, a compensation consultancy.  "You have to pay people who are performing, even in bad times, in order to keep them in place," Hall said.



The Wall Street Journal
Theory & Practice
Their Names Liveth Forever, Just Not on Latest Firms
  July 9, 2007

Executive-pay adviser Pearl Meyer spent 11 years building her name into a well-known brand before selling Pearl Meyer & Partners in 2000.  Ms. Meyer planned to stay at the firm, and says she "stupidly" promised buyer Clark Consulting that she wouldn't use Pearl, Meyer or her initials at another business.  "The prospect of my leaving never occurred to me," she explains.

Five years later, Ms. Meyer and four partners resigned to start a rival pay consulting firm.  Constrained by the sale agreement, the group named the new firm Steven Hall & Partners after its managing director.

Mix-ups persist over Pearl Meyer the adviser and Pearl Meyer the company.  At conferences, "people charge up to me and criticize me for things I didn't do," Ms. Meyer says.  Her typical retort? "I'm Steven Hall.  Why are you complaining to me?"

David Swinford, president and chief executive of Pearl Meyer & Partners, says that when Ms. Meyer left the firm, she urged colleagues to keep doing "good work so they wouldn't embarrass her name, and we try to do that."

Fashion-industry founders often negotiate lifetime royalties when they sell their oponymous companies, says Suzanne Hogan, chief operating officer for Lippincott, a brand-strategy consulting firm.  "In retrospect," Ms. Meyer says, "it would have been a good tactic."



ExecuNet
CareerSmart Advisor
New Compensation Legislation and Your Paycheck
   July 9, 2007

"The new disclosure rules have not dampened direct compensation of executives due to high performance and rising stock prices in 2006," says Pearl Meyer, senior managing director of Steven Hall and Partners, an executive compensation consulting firm based in New York.  "However it is resulting in pressure on perquisites, supplementary retirement funds and change in control benefits.  I believe the SEC will not make any material changes in disclosure in 2008.  The same rules will continue to prevail for the 2008 proxy season with changes probably made for 2009 proxy season based on analysis of disclosures to date.  We'll be in the same rules for 2008.



BNA Daily Tax Report
Executive Compensation
Compensation Committees Look to Planning,
Reasonableness Over Time in Setting Pay
Conference held on June 21, 2007
   June 21, 2007

Succession planning is the single most important tool for holding down executive pay, consultant Steven Hall said June 21.  Hall told the American Law Institute-American Bar Association's annual executive compensation conference that succession planning allows companies to bring executives up through the ranks and avoid expensive buyouts and the cost of bringing in new people.

Internal equity "is coming back" as compensation committees are looking for relationships between pay levels, Hall said, adding that pay is not going down but growth is slower.  The cash component of pay is starting to rise, the shift toward performance restricted stock and stock-based stock appreciation rights continues, with long-term incentives making up the most significant part of total pay for senior executives, Hall said.

Regarding public company pay in comparison to private equity firms, Hall said there are no general surveys of pay at private equity firms.  As to whether pay programs should be adjusted to compete with private equity firms, Hall likened the present situation with private equity to the dot.com world before the bubble burst and advised, "hold your ground."



The Wall Street Journal
Seeking Ne CEO, Some Boards Skip The Stars
   May 21, 2007

Boards seeking outside CEOs as corporate saviors often become enamored.  "When they find the person they think will make a difference, the cost is [viewed as] immaterial," says Pearl Meyer, a New York pay consultant who advises Boards.



Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Executive Pay Remains Mind-Boggling
But Regulatory Changes To Make Compensation Clearer Muddy This Year's Compilation
   May 13, 2007

Experts say new regulations requiring companies to disclose more information about executive compensation will put more pressure on those companies to do a better job of aligning pay with performance...

But compensation consultant Pearl Meyer expects the rules will have unintended consequences because shareholders aren't the only ones looking at the additional information.  Companies who discover they are paying much more than their competitors may rein in compensation, says Mrs. Meyer, senior managing director of Steven Hall & Partners.

Of course, the opposite could prove true too, she said.  "Others who are not leaders of the pack will say 'Hey, we're very much behind.  Let's catch up.'"

She recalled that the SEC's last major revision of pay disclosure rules in 1992 had an inflationary impact on executive compensation rushed to play catchup.



Financial Executive
SEC Disclosure Rules Evoke Concern
   May 1, 2007

Pearl Meyer, one of the deans of executive compensation consulting, is concerned about compensation disclosures in this proxy season, for a number of reasons.

Meyer, who headed her own firm as Pearl Meyer & Partners, is now managing director of Steven Hall & Partners in New York.  She laid out her concerns in an interview, suggesting that the compensation disclosure rules enacted last year by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) could cause confusion and a surfeit of information that shareholders may not want to wade through.

"I'm concerned that we've created a scenario of unintended consequences -- the compensation sections of the proxy are running 20-odd pages in some cases" she says.  "We've created a whole new set of fine print that no one is going to read after this first year."



St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Disclosure Rules Provide New Look At Execs' Pay
   April 22, 2007

Thanks to the Securities and Exchange Commission's new disclosure requirements, we know more about executive compensation than ever before.

Steven Hall, managing director of consulting firm Steven Hall & Partners in New York, said some boards changed their pay criteria to avoid "some ugly admissions in the CD&A."

In general, Hall believes, compensation committees have been conscientious about linking pay to performance.  "There's been a lot of good work done," he said.  "They're setting performance on a much more rigorous basis than we've seen in the past."

The true test comes when a company stumbles.  Pay for performance is a fine mantra when things are going well, but shareholders have a right to expect executives to share in losses, too.  In Mercer's survey of big companies, 2001 was the last year when CEO pay declined.  It fell only 2.8% in a year when profits dropped by 18 percent.

"It seems much stickier on the down side," Hall said.



MSNBC
Baltimore Business Journal
New Exec Pay Disclosure Regs Have Some Tongue-Tied
SEC Chief Wants Proxies Filed In 'Plain English'
   April 22, 2007

"I think the SEC disclosure format failed to achieve its primary purpose, which was to permit investors to clearly relate pay to performance in 2006," said Pearl Meyer, senior managing director of compensation consulting firm Steven Hall & Partners.



Boardroom exchange
2006 Directors' College Highlights
Panel Discussion
Executive Compensation in the Spotlight
   
Following the disclosure rules introduced by the SEC in 1992, senior management began receiving enriched pensions, enhanced perquisites, deferred compensation arrangements (with above-market payouts for senior executives), and parachute payouts, of which many investors were not aware.

Results Count
Before 1992, "we really did pay attention to internal parity, as well as results achieved," says Pearl Meyer of Steven Hall & Partners.  At the top Meyer emphasizes, you should pay for results, not just hard work.  "Other folks in a company may be compensated for their efforts, but the CEO has to do more than give it the old scouting try.  Compensation committees need to ask:  Did we make money? How did the shareholders do? How did our various constituencies do? Are we strategically on target? A CEO's compensation should depend on the answers to these questions.  Management teams overall should be told there are no free rides.  To earn compensation in the top 25 percent, you must perform in the top 25 percent."



St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Planes, Dues Add Up In Executives' Pay
   March 28, 2007

New Securities and Exchange Commission rules force companies to assign a value to stock options and pension plans for the first time, and to calculate a figure for total pay ...

Some once-popular perks are disappearing because of the new rules, says Steven Hall, managing director of consulting firm Steven Hall & Partners in New York.  "Many executives are volunteering to pay their own club dues."



BusinessWeek
Golden Parachutes: Cut The Cords
CEO Severance Packages Are Out Of Control - Much Too Big And Used Too Often. Pro or Con?
   March 23, 2007

Let's keep in mind that CEOs command such extraordinary compensation because they have extraordinary leadership skills.

"I've tried to hit a golf ball, so I understand why Tiger Woods makes $80 million a year," says Pearl Meyer, senior managing director at Steven Hall & Partners, an executive compensation consulting firm.  "But most people haven't tried to be a CEO.  They see the private aircraft and parking space by the door but have no idea how difficult the job is."

...corporations are taking steps to address one of the public's bitterest complaints about golden parachutes: "pay for poor performance."

"Lawyers are grappling with ways to clarify the small print, to specify exactly what defines disappointing performance and how that will affect severance," says Meyer.  "We're also writing 'claw backs' into contracts, where executives can get their stock taken away if they violate Sarbanes-Oxley or other rules."



Deseret Morning News
Forth Worth Star Telegram
Atlanta Journal Constitution
Delta Pay Plan Wins Praise:  Key Executives Won't Bail Now, Observers Say
   March 21, 2007

Delta Air Lines' plan to give an extra big chunk of money to rank-and-file employees as it leaves bankruptcy court will pay off for the airline in the long run, corporate compensation observers and others predict.

The question is whether Delta's executive corps will hang with the airline though their payout is less rich than has been the case for other corporations exiting bankruptcy.

Pearl Meyer bets they will.

"I would think people who stuck with the company through the bankruptcy would want to continue," said Meyer, senior managing director for New York-based executive compensation consultant Steven Hall & Partners.  "They have walked through walls of fire and emerged from the other side as a team."



Associated Press
Belleville News Democrat
Ameren Execs Get Big Bonuses But Rank-and-File Got Overtime During Outages
   March 17, 2007

St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Ameren Worked The Numbers, Execs Got The Bonuses
  March 16, 2007

Compensation committees generally have a  lot of latitude to decide what costs are included when calculating executive pay, said Nora McCord of Steven Hall & Partners, an executive pay consulting firm in New York.  Typically, events that are outside of a company's control aren't counted for those purposes, she said.



Investment Dealers' Digest
A Fork in The Road
After its big splash in 05, Wachovia now scaling back its Wall Street ambitions?
   February 12, 2007

"What management has to do is demonstrate that [tying compensation to the overall performance of a division] is a more productive approach to running the business that will yield a higher total pot in which you can participate," says Pearl Meyer, senior managing director at Steven Hall & Partners, a compensation consulting firm .



Associated Press
Experts Don't Expect Home Depot's New CEO's Pay to Set A Trend
   January 24, 2007

Steven Hall, an executive compensation expert who runs a consulting firm in New York, said such examples are likely the exception, not the rule.

"The problem is the people with the background to be CEOs, proven or not, are in very limited supply.  There's a lot of competition for them."



Reuters
Lifting The Lid:  Exec Pay Consultants To Face Closer Scrutiny
   January 12, 2007

For consultants, advising on executive pay is far less lucrative than larger-scale, long-term services like outsourcing and employee compensation plans, said Pearl Meyer, a partner with independent consulting firm Steven Hall &  Partners.

"It's a small-ticket, but most influential in the course of a corporation's affairs," Meyer said.  "It's the star quality of the executives who are receiving large packages that's attracting the attention of the press and of stockholders."

Meyer said most firms were highly ethical, but individual consultants might feel pressure to sell other services, leading to a conflict of interest.



St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Nardelli Held His Wallet Up With Belt and Suspenders
   January 5, 2007

"If a board decides to embrace an employment contract as a sort of necessary evil, it needs to think through all the possible consequences.  What does it cost shareholders if the company is acquired, or if the executive quits or dies?  Let's make sure there are no surprises," says Steven Hall, managing director of consulting firm Steven Hall & Partners.



The Wall Street Journal  
IBM Ends Director Stock Options, Spotlighting Popular Perk's Decline
   December 21, 2006

"The overall governance thrust today is to have board members become [stock] owners rather than optionees," said Pearl Meyer, senior managing director of Steven Hall & Partners, a pay consultancy in New York.  Options focus recipients "too much on short-term movements in the stock price," she said.



Forbes.com
Directorship
Are You Making Too Much Money?
   December 12, 2006

The role of compensation consultants and how they engage with board compensation committees are coming under new scrutiny.  And the flap over the dating of stock options granted to top managers is going to intensify the pressure to link pay with performance.

"What we've seen in the past year I would call a revolution rather than an evolution, due to the impact of outside forces on compensation and corporate governance," Pearl Meyer, one the superstars in the field, said in a panel discussion on compensation at the Directorship's recent Agenda 07 Forum in New York.

"We're faced with intense scrutiny from all our various publics, which is a result of a distrust of management and a disenchantment with board governance," said Meyer, who is senior managing director with Steven Hall & Partners, based in New York.  "We've had an intense dispersion of power, first from management to the board, and then from board to the various outside forces.  Directors must step up to the governance challenge we're facing and champion change.  And the way we can do that is looking at the new standards of reasonableness."

"I've been endeavoring to bring compensation committees together especially with audit committees, because our performance metrics and our goals are based upon the results that audit is reviewing," Meyer said.  "I think we need better integration.  Perhaps it should occur at the committee chair level.  Other approaches I've seen include having committee members attend other meetings, or [having] many board members attend committee meetings."

The new best practice, Meyer said, is to have consultants whose only responsibility is compensation and whose sole reporting relationship is to the board.



Charlotte Observer
5 Burning Issues On Executive Pay
   December 3, 2006

Will CEO Pay go down?  No, said verteran executive compensation consultant Pearl Meyer of Steven Hall & Partners."  The market for executives continues to be tight," Meyer said.  However, "it's going to be tougher earning your money because of the pay-for-performance movement.



IOMA   
Study Finds Board Comp at All-Time High
   December 2006

Median total compensation for independent directors at the 500 largest U.S. companies in 2005/2006 rose 14%, from $162,363 to $185,000, according to a new study by Steven Hall & Partners, an executive compensation consulting firm.  The increase is due in part to higher cash retainers for board service (up 11%) and and committee chairmanship (up 25% to 80%, depending on the committee).  Board pay for firms in the bottom 250 of the Top 500 companies studied grew 19%.

The study found that median total remuneration for directors at the top 1,000 companies in 2005/2006 ranges from $160,021 to $175,250, depending on committee membership and role.  Director total remuneration includes cash retainers, stock awards and meeting fees for service on both the board and its committees.

The trend away from stock options continues; while 95% of the Top 1,000 Firms award equity to directors, only 23% use options alone and just under half grant options at all.  In contrast, 72% award full-value shares and 27% award both full-value shares and options.  At companies using full-value shares, the median award is $66, 054, about on par with the median option grant value of $69,886.  Overall, the median equity award is $87,375.

In addition, 34% of companies ceased paying board meeting fees, typically $1,500 a meeting.  At companies without meeting fees, median total pay is $181,385, which is 11% more than the $163,350 at companies that pay such fees.



Base and Bonus
Director's Pay is Up at Smaller Large Firms
   November, 2006

The smaller Fortune 500 companies are now rapidly increasing their own directors' compensation in an effort to keep up. 

Median total remuneration for companies in the bottom 250 of the top 500 companies grew 19% from 2004 to 2005, according to a study conducted by Steven Hall & Partners.  That's compared to the upper half of these companies, which increased diretors' pay by roughly 12%.  Overall, the top 500 companies' director pay grew 14%.

We are seeing the big companies set the trends for other companies," says Steven Hall, managing director.  Hall says that the compensation is typically the last thing directors examine when considering an offer to join a board.  First, they consider the risks and time commitment involved as well as who's already on the board.



The New York TImes   
Signing Up a New Chief In the Age of Prenups
     November 25, 2006 

Shareholder activists are clamoring for clauses that provide immediate vesting and payouts only if the former chief loses his or her job as a result of the merger.  The executives win more often than not, "but boards are paying attention to the concept," said Pearl Meyer, a managing partner at the compensation consulting firm Steven Hall & Partners.



Investment Dealer's Digest:    
Director Pay Takes Off At Smaller Companies: But Investment Bankers Don't Always Cash In As Relationships May Prohibit Them From Taking Compensation
     October 16, 2006

A survey by compensation expert Steven Hall & Partners researched director pay at the top 500 US companies and found that while these companies paid directors 14% more in 2005/2006 than in 2004/2005, the bottom 250 companies had to raise pay by a full 19%.  Median total compensation of directors at these 500 companies now stands at $185,000, up from $162,363 the year before.

Why did that happen?  Steven Hall, who is managing director at his eponymous firm, says that the smaller companies have had to "play catch-up."

"Board compensation at smaller firms is rising at a faster rate than at larger firms in an effort... to meet the competitive challenge of recruiting directors in an era of greater responsibility, public scrutiny and potential personal liability," he says.



The Wall Street Journal:    What's New - Dispatches From The Staff Of The Dow Jones Corporate Governance Newsletter
     October 9, 2006

Director pay reached a new high in 2005.

...Steven Hall & Partners LLC found that total remuneration rose between 8.1% and 12% in 2005, depending on which committees directors served on.  The study cited "growing oversight, higher visibility, increased accountability, and heavy demand for a limited pool of qualified candidates" for the increase in compensation.



The Corporate Board:    Option Pricing Abuse And Boards
     September/October 2006

Byline by Pearl Meyer

Unfortunately, option timing abuse has signaled a lack of board vigilance and management integrity.  Regardless of the final outcome, this story will further damage corporate reputations with the general public, as well as employees, investors, regulators and the media.  Diligent board oversight will serve as the critical ingredient to restoring confidence in corporate America.



Workspan:   Viewpoint - Aligning The Interests of Directors and Shareholders
     September 2006

Byline by Pearl Meyer

The nation's leading soft-drink manufacturer recently announced a new board compensation plan payable in cash that is contingent upon company-profit performance.  While commendable for its stated objective of aligning director and shareholder interests, this approach is not likely to be imitated by other companies, which is an equally positive development...



St. Louis Post-Dispatch:   Here's Hoping Senate Gets Answers On Backdating
     September 6, 2006

Enron was a one-company scandal.  So was WorldCom; so was Tyco.  The current options-backdating scandal, though, has already enveloped more than 80 companies.

One leading pay consultant, Steven Hall of Steven Hall & Partners in New York, says he had never heard of backdating until the scandal broke this summer.  "You don't know whether to be proud that none of your clients were involved in this or embarassed that you didn't know about something so widespread," Hall said.  "I'm sticking with proud at the moment."

Hall says he can imagine executives, about to get options, talking about how much their package would have been worth if it had been issued earlier.  Someone made the leap, he guesses, from idle musing to outright deception.



The Wall Street Journal:   Surveying the Field - Magnified Scrutiny
     August 28, 2006

A study of 181 of the 200 largest U.S. companies by compensation consulting firm Steven Hall & Partners LLC found [Board pay] increases depended on which committees directors were on.  Steven Hall, principal of the firm, says retainers for chairing audit or compensation committees were up 25%, to $15,000 and $10,000 respectively.



The Wall Street Journal:  $100 Million Helps Lure Away General Electric Veteran
     August 24, 2006

In a move that illustrates the growing power of private equity, Dutch media firm VNU NV snatched Mr. Calhoun, 49, from GE where he was one of four vice chairmen and a confidant of Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt.

"Private equity people are singing a siren song that's almost irrestible," said Pearl Meyer, senior managing director of Steven Hall & Partners, a compensation consulting firm.



Corporate Governance:   Director Pay Found Increasing, Along With The Scrutiny
     August 16, 2006

A study by compensation consulting firm Steven Hall & Partners LLC found total remuneration made a steep increase - rising between 8.1% and 12.4% for the 2004-2005 period, depending on which committees directors served.  That amounted to pay of between $195,000 and $210,833.

Steven Hall's study found that retainers for chairing committees also increased - up 25% for chairing audit or compensation committees, bringing those retainers to $15,000 and $10,000 respectively.  There was an increase of 33% for governance committee chairmanships, making that retainer $10,000.

"The [director pay] numbers were lower than expected," said Hall, who added that pay hasn't kept pace with directors' snowballing workloads.  The study cited "growing oversight, higher visibility, increased accountability, and heavy demand for a limited pool of qualified candidates" for the increase in board compensation.  Hall sees those factors contributing to increases this year as well.



Pittsburgh Post- Gazette:  Business News
As Scrutiny of Corporate Board Rises, So Does Compensation for Directors
     August 15, 2006

The median pay of a director of the 200 largest U.S. companies ranged from $195,000 to $210,833 in the latest fiscal year, up 8 percent to 12 percent from the previous year, according to New York compensation consultant Steven Hall & Partners.

Pay for audit committee chairman - typically the highest compensated director - reached $210,833, an 8 percent increase, according to Steven Hall.  He attributed part of the increase to the $15,000 retainer audit committee chairman received, up 25% from the previous year.

"Not only is more time involved, but also more commitment and risk," said Mr. Hall, the consulting firm's managing director.



Dow Jones:  Guest Column - Options Backdating Past and Future
     August 2, 2006

Byline article by Steven Hall & Nora McCord

The executive compensation scandal of 2006 is the backdating of stock options.  Executives have lost their jobs over it, some have been indicted for it and companies are scrambling to answer the question:  We didn't do this, did we?

The current challenge for boards is to determine what actions to take now to ensure the highest level of governance practices and ensure their company follows not only the letter of the law, but the spirit.



Real Estate Forum:   What's In Your Wallet?
    July 2006

When it comes to compensation, real estate executives are as richly paid as their counterparts in other industries.

2005 compensation levels are part of a fairly consistent pattern of growth that has taken place over the past few years.  According to Steven Hall, founder and managing director of Steven Hall & Partners, CEO salaries in the REIT sector jumped 23% from 2004 to 2005, while COOs gained a paltry 3%.  CFOs, with their new status, gained 29%.  "CFOs have gotten a lot more recognition in recent years because of the risks and responsibilities associated with their position.  Their signatures are on the SEC documents right along with the CEOs'.  The penalties are focused squarely on both, but the CEO has always had his signature on those documents.  The CFO can provide a lot of value, or a lot of pain if he doesn't do his job right."

And the increases should continue this year.  Hall predicts, conservatively, that total compensation for top real estate executives in 2006 should bump up 4% or 5%.



Corporate Secretary:  Best Available Options
     July 2006

Byline article by Steven Hall, Managing Director

The recently announced investigations by the SEC into whether certain companies backdated option grants to provide executives with an advantageous exercise price promise to be ugly.  While the practice seems to have been limited, it will certainly be held up as an example of executive greed and a reason for the government to provide greater oversight over executive pay.

Regardless of the final outcome for the companies involved, this issue represents another opportunity for those involved in the design, approval and implementation of executive compensation to be reminded that integrity and playing by the rules are critical responsibilities that we have as stewards of the company on behalf of shareholders.



Workforce Management:  Option Scandals Might Put HR in Watchdog Role
     July 25, 2006

Recent scandals involving companies backdating their stock option grants to employees may help HR managers get that last seat at the table they've longed for.  However, it might not be the seat they wanted.

These cases suggest that HR professionals will no longer be able to plead ignorance, says Pearl Meyer, senior managing director at Steven Hall & Partners, a New York executive compensation consulting firm. 

"Their jobs are going to be far more complex and technical than they bargained for," she says.  No longer can HR managers just focus on recruiting employees, she says.  "They need to extend their compliance knowledge and responsibilities."



The New York Times:  Haunted by a Heady Past - Silicon Valley Was Calming Down, Now an Options Scandal
     July 22, 2006

The practice of backdating options dates to the early 1990's but took on momentum during the frenzied days of the Internet era, when the competition for available talent was fierce.

People out there really duped themselves into thinking they were doing this for the benefit of stock-holders when in reality they were defrauding them," said Pearl Meyer, a managing partner at Steven Hall & Partners, a New York executive compensation firm that has worked with scores of Valley-based companies.  They clearly viewed this as a victimless crime.



Corporate Secretary:  Compensation - The Secret Life of ...
     June 2006

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the pressure on boards to act with true independence and a general climate of heightened scrutiny have all set the stage for eradicating conflicts of interest in the executive compensation consulting world.  In fact, positive strides have already been been made.  Joseph Sorrentino, managing director at Steven Hall & Partners, a Manhattan-based independent executive compensation consulting firm founded in September 2005 notes that his firm is more often hired by boards and not by management -- something that simply wasn't true a few years back.  



GlobeSt.com:  Executive Watch
     June 27, 2006

Based on a review of proxy statements from 106 public REITS, made by Steven Hall & Partners, an executive compensation consulting firm, median total compensation (base, bonus and equity) for REIT CFOs as of December 2005 was $920,011, a 29% increase over the prior year. 



Baltimore Sun:  CEO Pay, and Scrutiny, Continue to Rise
     June 18, 2006

Compensation consultants acknowledge the emotional reaction to the issue [executive pay levels].  But they say the implications for the nation and the economy could be greater in the long term if society fails to reward the competitiveness and innovation of a limited number of people who possess the skills and experience to run a large company.

"We don't want to kill the golden goose," said Pearl Meyer, a senior managing partner at compensation consulting firm Steven Hall & Partners.  "We don't want to kill the entrepreneurial spirit in America." 




Pittsburgh Tribune Review:  Stock Options Still A Popular Incentive For Executives
     June 15, 2006

"Stock options are alive and well even with the charge to earnings," said Steven Hall, managing director of New York based executive pay consultant Steven Hall & Partners. 



Accountingweb.com: SEC Calls for Greater Disclosure of Executive Pay, Probes Options Dating
     June 2, 2006

While compensation numbers for last year reflected stock options exercised, FAS 123 has already changed the way executives are compensated, say Steven Hall of Steven Hall & Partners, an executive pay consulting firm in New York, according to the Journal.  "It's caused companies to shift compensation to other vehicles.  The other movement that has taken place is that the number of people who get stock options has gone down."



BusinessWeek: Upfront - CFOs Sing The SarbOx Blues
     May 29, 2006

... a study by executive compensation consultant Steven Hall & Partners shows last year's average total CFO pay up 13%, to $1.75 million annually.



The Providence Journal (Rhode Island): 
RECIPES FOR MAKING MONEY
Rhode Island Companies Must Reveal More Details Than Ever About How They Compensate Top Executives
     May 21, 2006

The decisions (executives) make on the job and the money they take home are being eyed by shareholders thirsting for better returns and watchdogs eager to take a bite out of someone's hide.  "This is a complicated, and to make it worse, an emotional topic," said Steven Hall, of Steven Hall & Partners, an executive pay consultancy in New York City.  Corporate accountants must now estimate option costs based on how long they expect employees will hold onto them, how sharply a company's stock will rise and fall, and other factors.  Some companies are trying to avoid this math altogether. 

"I think it's done two things," Hall said of the rule change.  "It's caused companies to shift compensation to other vehicles.  The other movement is that the number of people who get stock options has gone down.  There was a trend in the 1990s of pushing down stock options to lower-level employees," Hall said.  "That's stopped and is retreating."



San Antonio Express-News: Executive Compensation - San Antonio's CEOs Pay & Perks
     May 14, 2006

A long career in the energy business has led to shareholder gold and rewards for Valero Energy Corp.  CEO Bill Greehey, whose $95.3 million compensation set a record for San Antonio CEO pay.  Greehey stepped down as CEO at the end of last year and remains chairman of the company.

Pearl Meyer, a partner in compensation consulting firm Steven Hall & Partners, said Valero's long track record is paying off for shareholders, including executives holding options.  "Valero's executives have done a marvelous job in building the company over the last several years, so it's no surprise that they built a lot of shareholder value," Meyer said.



Base and Bonus: At Sears Holdings, Equity Takes a Back Seat
     May 2006

Sear's unique comp program also follows a period of massive change in the way companies use equity grants.  In the wake of new options expensing rules, companies have been shifting from options to whole-share equity awards in their incentive plans.  Yet, essentially abandoning new stock grants for executives represents a big step that few firms have embraced.  The benefits of equity are too great, both for the company and the employee.  "Equity grants are alive and well in America," says Steven Hall, managing director of Steven Hall & Partners.



St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri): Executives' Pay Remains as Large as Their Egos
    April 23, 2006

Pay consultants say that not only are companies aligning pay with performance, they're also disclosing more information to shareholders.

Steven Hall, managing director at consulting firm Steven Hall & Partners in New York, thinks better disclosure may have the biggest effect on things like company cars and country-club memberships.

"Benefits and perquisites are getting second and third looks...," Hall said.  "There are companies where the CEO is saying, 'I don't need the country club paid for by the company any more." 



workspan weekly: Survey - CEO Pay Should Remain with Boards
     April 21, 2006

More board compensation committee members than CEOs believe excessive CEO pay is more prevalent, according to a survey conducted by Steven Hall & Partners, independent executive compensation consultants.

Although only 3.4% of CEOs say excessive CEO pay occurs frequently, 14% of compensation committee members say it does.  85% of compensation committee members believe there is evidence of excessive CEO pay, while 41% of CEOs say excesive CEO pay is rare.  Survey respondents either lead one of the 1,000 largest U.S. companies or sit on the board compensation committee.

"These conflicting views suggest that compensation committee members are awake to the pay versus performance issue and their responsibility to exercise independent oversight,"  said Steven Hall, managing director of Steven Hall & Partners.

"While it is human nature for CEOs to consider themselves fairly paid, the fact that compensation committee members have a different perspective is a positive sign in the re-balancing of power within the corporation."



Dow Jones News Service/MarketWatch
Firms Critique Proposed SEC Compensation Tables
     April 20, 2006

The Securities and Exchange Commission's proposal that companies include the estimated value of stock and option grants in their main executive compensation summary has created some strange bedfellows.

Intel Corp. (INTC) and Kellogg Co. (K), for example, are in agreement with a coalition of international pension fund investors, the Corporate Library, and New York pay consultant Steven Hall & Partners in urging the SEC to revamp the proposed tables.

One of the main concerns raised by critics is that combining the value of yet-to-be-earned equity, as proposed, with hard cash actually paid out the prior year in a single table risks confusing investors.



The Wall Street Journal: CEO Seeks to Halt Stock-Based Pay at United Health - Move Comes Amid Scrutiny of Options Timing, Gains; Suspensions in Vitesse Probe
     April 19, 2006

UnitedHealth Group Inc. Chief Executive Officer William W. McGuire recommended that the big health insurer suspend many forms of its senior executive pay, including stock options, in what compensation experts called an unprecedented move in recent corporate-pay practices.

The cessation of stock-option grants would be "very unusual," said Pearl Meyer, senior managing director of Steven Hall & Partners, a New York compensation-consulting firm.  Some companies have stopped giving options to highly compensated executives, Ms. Meyer said, but "where they have, they have changed the compensation program to use another long-term vehicle."



Trading Markets: Steven Hall & Partners Files Letter With SEC Commenting on Commission's Proposed Amendments to Executive Compensation - Quick Facts
     April 18, 2006

On Tuesday, Steven Hall & Partners announced that is has filed a letter with the Securities and Exchange Commission on 'SEC' commenting on the Commission's Proposed Amendments to Executive Compensation and Related Party Disclosure Rules.

In its letter to the SEC, Steven Hall & Partners affirmed its support of executive compensation disclosure stating that they commend the SEC for proceeding with this initiative.  They fundamentally agree that corporate stakeholders and potential investors deserve disclosure of executive compensation that is complete, transparent, comparable from year to year, and comparable from company to company.



Compliance Week: Coke Director Pay Plan Raises Eyebrows
    April 18, 2006

When Coca-Cola recently announced plans to tie all its compensation for its board of directors to specific performance targets, Chief Executive Officer Neville Isdell crowed: "This all-or-nothing approach to board compensation aligns the interests of our directors with those of shareowners more closely than any other compensation formula I have seen."

Most compensation and governance experts, however, say tying director compensation to performance is a bad idea.

"It leaves a conflict of interest between management and directors," says Pearl Meyer, an executive compensation consultant at Steven Hall & Partners .  "If compensation is based on goals they are setting, you can ultimately say they are not disinterested."



The New York Times: For Leading Exxon to Riches, $144,573 a Day
      April 15, 2006

For 13 years as chairman and chief executive, Lee R. Raymond propelled Exxon, the successor to John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Trust, to the pinnacle of the oil world.

For his efforts, Mr. Raymond, who retired in December, was compensated more then $686 million from 1993 to 2005, according to an analysis done for The New York Times by Brian Foley, an independent compensation consultant.

Pearl Meyer, a senior managing partner at Steven Hall & Partners, a New York-based company that advises corporate boards on executive compensation, said "Lee Raymond is reaping the results of a 43-year career during which he led the organization through difficult times as well as some good years."  Mrs. Meyer said at her previous firm she provided consulting services to Exxon's board but was not involved in Mr. Raymond's retirement compensation.



The Wall Street Journal:
The CEO Health Plan - In Era of Givebacks, Some Executives Get Free Coverage After They Retire
      April 13, 2006

At a time when companies are scaling back health benefits for other retirees, former top executives at many corporations are receiving partial or full lifetime medical coverage on top of pensions valued at millions of dollars, a Wall Street Journal analysis of dozens of recent securities filings indicates.

Companies are most likely to promise lifetime health benefits when hiring midcareer or older executives, especially if their prior employers offered similar perks, says Steven Hall, managing director of Steven Hall & Partners, an executive-compensation firm in New York.



The Wall Street Journal: The Journal Report:  The WSJ 350: A survey of CEO Compensation
Purchase Plan - More Small-Company Owners Are Selling The Business Now, With The Promise of Getting Paid Later
     April 10, 2006

If you run your own company and are seriously considering selling it, accepting a "buy now, pay later" arrangement may be a great way to get the deal done.  But don't take any future checks for granted.

Another thorny issue can be how much operational control the seller should have after the acquisition.  Often, notes Pearl Meyer, senior managing director of New York pay consultant Steven Hall & Partners, the seller would want to negotiate for an agreement to make sure that the buyer can't "materially change" the operations of the acquired business.  Changes in marketing, for instance, could reduce the seller's chance to obtain the earn-out.



Forbes.com: Ask An Expert - The Name on The Door
      March 9, 2006

When Pearl Meyer sold her eponymous executive compensation firm to Clark/Bardes Holdings (now Clark Inc.) in 2000, she also relinquished the rights to her trademarked name.  That made things a bit difficult last August when Meyer, fed up with working for a publicly held company, decided to leave Clark to strike out on her own.  She ended up calling the new firm Steven Hall & Partners, after her longtime partner.



MSNBC - Baltimore Business Journal: McCormick Survives Tough Year, But CEO Bonus Doesn't
      February 26, 2006

In a year when longtime food industry standout McCormick & Co. Inc. struggled with problem after problem, CEO Robert Lawless' bonus fell by more than 50 percent.

Nationwide, companies are struggling with how to best link bonus pay to company performance, said Steven Hall, managing director of New York-based executive pay consultants Steven Hall & Partners .

Hall had not studied McCormick's proxy, but in response to a brief description of pay and earnings for 2005, he said, "It sounds as though they were judging themselves harshly... expecting better performance, which they didn't meet, and pay suffered as a result."

Overall, salary hikes for CEOs are slowing after years of increases, Hall said.



www.managment-issues: CEO Churn On The Rise 
      February 9, 2006

After a one-year lull in 2003, CEO turnover among the top 200 largest U.S. corporations rose in 2004 and 2005, with many departing bosses receiving generous 'golden goodbyes'.

Sixteen percent of these 200 largest U.S. companies have a new CEO this year as compared to 17 percent in 2004 and eight percent in 2003, according to executive compensation consultants, Steven Hall & Partners.

Steven Hall & Partners' analysis also shows that half of the 16 CEOs who departed in 2005 from the top 100 companies received separation payments, with two who resigned under pressure from their boards receiving some of the highest cash payments.

Phillip Purcell, former CEO of Morgan Stanley, is unlikely to be complaining about receiving almost $44 million in cash, while Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett Packard, was paid $14 million.

"Fortunately, these two severance packages were the exception, not the rule in 2005, but they certainly captured the headlines.  Awards such as these are often questioned as pay for non-performance," said Steven Hall, Managing Director of Steven Hall & Partners.

"Going forward, the cost of the packages like the one received by Carly Fiorina pursuant to her hiring employment contract with Hewlett Packard will be disclosed up-front under the proposed Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rules and no longer catch shareholders unaware."



Reuters: US CEO Turnover High, Golden Parachutes Questioned 
      February 7, 2006

Thirty-two of the 200 largest companies got new CEOs last year, down from 34 in 2004 but up from 16 in 2003, according to the study by Steven Hall & Partners, a New York compensation and governance consultant . The recent peak is 42, set in 2000.

"Boards are growing increasingly sensitive to corporate performance, and not letting a situation fester before taking action," said Pearl Meyer, senior managing director at Steven Hall, in an interview.

Ioma Report on Salary Survey: News Brief
      January, 2006

"The timing of these (SEC disclosure) proposals is excellent.  While not a final set of rules, companies now are aware of the information they will be expected to disclose in the 2007 proxy season.  Thus, every compensation decision made from this day forward should show how it will look when disclosed next year," said Steven Hall, an expert on senior executive and board pay, and managing director of Steven Hall & Partners, New York-based executive compensation consultants.



Associated Press: Retiring Wachovia Executive May Get More Than $100 Million
      January 31, 2006

Wallace D. Malone Jr.'s 15 months as a Wachovia Corp. vice chairman are paying off. Upon his retirement Tuesday, he may receive more than $100 million in cash, stock and other benefits.

Pearl Meyer, a compensation expert with Stephen Hall & Partners in New York , estimated that the whole package will add up to $119 million. That doesn't include the value Malone is gaining through accelerated vesting of stock options and restricted shares, which she said will "considerably enhance the $119 million."

Meyer said the five annual $6.67 million severance payments are unusually generous. Normally, such payments to chief executives occur for three years, not five. In addition, the payments are based on the sum of Malone's salary and highest bonus in the past five years, instead of a target or average bonus, which is standard practice, she said.

Dow Jones News Service: JP Morgan, Citigroup Make It Tougher For Bankers To Bolt
      January 17, 2006

In an effort to stem the tide of defections on Wall Street, more big investment banks are requiring top bankers and traders to give notice of a month or longer before they jump ship - or in some cases risk losing their bonuses.

"I would expect that you will see firms push these numbers of (leave) days higher and higher," said Steven Hall , an executive compensation consultant who works with Wall Street firms. "They're saying, 'The more difficult I can make it for you to leave, the better it is for me.'"

Wall Street has long sought ways to separate "good leavers," who retire or go to work for charities from "bad leavers," who jump to competitors, said Hall, the compensation consultant.

The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones Newswires: Coke Gives Holders Say on Exit Pay
      December 22, 2005

Steven Hall, a New York-based compensation consultant , said measures such as the one Coke adopted could serve to limit severance deals going forward.

The Wall Street Journal: Managing Another Boost for the Boss --- Compensation Rises Again As CEOs Get Lavish Packages For Coming, Going or Staying
      December 12, 2005

Perhaps the oddest type of management reward is a "signing bonus" for an incumbent. Boards believe "it's far less risky and cheaper than finding someone new", observes Pearl Meyer, senior managing director of Steven Hall & Partners, New York pay consultants .

The Deal: Brand Names
      October 9, 2005.

When Pearl Meyer recently left her 16-year-old executive compensation consulting firm to start a new one, it was bittersweet. "I left behind everything I had ever done and the furniture I bought and the people I had hired," Meyer says. But Meyer also left behind her name, a brand now owned by Clark Inc., the publicly held Bloomington, Ill.-based lobbying and consulting firm that bought Pearl Meyer & Partners in 2000.

Five years and a few defunct employment covenants later, Meyer and four of her former partners � Steven Hall, Diane Posnak, Steven Root and Joseph Sorrentino � have decided to go the private-company route again by forming Steven Hall & Partners, where, Meyer says, it's Hall's "turn to become a nonperson" � that is, a brand. Meyer has been a brand in the executive compensation field since the 1970s, when she founded and led the executive compensation practice at consulting firm Handy Associates, where Hall and Posnak also worked. In their new firm, Meyer and company hope to escape the pressures they faced under public company rule at Clark. "You have quarterly issues, reporting issues and the cost of compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley," she says. Cross-selling was another unwelcome pressure. "Compensation committees want you to focus on them, and not lobbying and financial services," Meyer says.

For Meyer, executive comp is "the focal point of the governance movement today," and she says it has been the window into many otherwise darkened boardrooms. But she is slow to criticize today's highly charged compensation landscape, pointing out that between 1999 and 2004, executive pay has increased only 12% � hardly a windfall. Still, she has some advice for compensation-committee directors concerned with executive pay issues: declare a do-over. "We're starting with a clean sheet of paper and reviewing every aspect of executive pay and perquisites," Meyer says. "We're advising full transparency and questioning long-term assumptions."

 New York Times:  Deutsch, Claudia H. "OPENERS: SUITS; NAME OR BRAND?" 
      October 2, 2005

Who could blame Pearl Meyer for feeling elated and wistful, even a bit disoriented, all at once? Ms. Meyer , an executive compensation consultant who over the years has turned her name into a well-known brand, recently started a new consulting firm. That's the elation part. 

But the name on the door is that of Steven E. Hall, her co-founder.  Her name remains on Pearl Meyer & Partners, the firm she and Mr. Hall created with two others and sold to Clark Consulting in 2000.  Their noncompete clauses expired in June, so now Pearl Meyer the consultant is competing directly with Pearl Meyer the company.

"Now every time I do something, I'm promoting a competitor's name," she said. 

Institutional Investor, People: There's A Lot In A Name For Pearl Meyer
      October, 2005

Being part of a public company just wasn't working for Pearl Meyer .

"My partners and I thought about it ...," says Meyer, who founded Pearl Meyer & Partners in 1989, ... Ultimately, she and other senior people at the firm judged the conflicts of working inside a public company too difficult to manage. ... "Public companies are obliged to grow and diversify to provide a return to stockholders," Meyer says. "We didn't want that double allegiance. We decided we were more comfortable focusing solely on CEO- and board-level work for our clients, in a private firm."

There was just one problem: When Meyer sold her firm to Clark, she also sold her name: The North Barrington, Illinois-based company holds the legal rights to Pearl Meyer & Partners. So her new firm will bear the moniker of longtime compadre Steven Hall, who has worked with her since their early days. Four other partners from the Clark-owned firm join Meyer and Hall at Steven Hall & Partners .

"Unfortunately, I had to leave my name behind, which is confusing," says Meyer. "But I told Steven it's his turn to be the brand now."