Motorola Shareholders Angered At Lack Of Progress, Executive Pay Packages

By
Tricia Duryee
- Tue 05 May 2009 02:12 PM PST

At
Motorola’s annual meeting Monday night, shareholders expressed anger
over the company’s slow turnaround, and said they were bothered by the
executive pay packages that seemed bloated given the company’s
financial problems.

Shareholder George Polous, who was quoted by both the Chicago Tribune and the Sun-Times,
said Motorola’s directors don’t deserve their pay — which ranges from
$194,000 to $363,000. “They don’t deserve it. Lots of people out of
work would be glad to have the jobs,” he said. Polous also told
executives that “the company is in the gutter.” The comments came
despite the fact that co-CEOs Sanjay Jha (pictured, right) and Greg
Brown have volunteered to accept a 25 percent salary cut this year, and
have adjusted their cash bonuses. Motorola (NYSE: MOT)
has defended Jha’s compensation, saying the bulk of his package is in
equity awards, and that incentives were needed to hire him away from
Qualcomm.

In addition, shareholders overwhelmingly voted to give stockholders,
who own at least 10 percent of the company, the right to call special
meetings on important topics, reports the Chicago Sun-Times.
In addition, shareholders approved a program that will allow employees
to exchange their stock options for new options at a lower exercise
price, according to the Chicago Tribune,
which reported that as of mid-February, 99.8 percent of its stock
options were underwater, or had exercise prices above the current stock
price. The program excluded board members and senior executives.

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Posted by Dan Walter

Performensation: Equity Compensation for High Performance Companies.