Mixed Results and Predictions on Say on Pay

I happened to see the Towers Watson poll conducted on 135 public companies regarding the frequency with which they anticipated holding their say on pay votes. The study notes that 51% predicted annual, 39% every three years and 10% biennial. If you have been watching my stats on what I have been seeing in early filings, this is not in line with what I have been seeing in actual early filings. The demographics of the universe that is being looked at could be different and what the board recommends and what shareholders vote could diverge even more. In the now 104 companies who have filed a DEF 14A since the beginning of December I have seen 52 (or a solid 50%) recommend a triennial vote, 34 (33%) recommend an annual vote, the fence sitters recommending bienniel are trailing at 9 almost equal with the 8 who have opted to make no recommendation.

I will try to do a tally of the reasons they quote for their recommendations but they do not vary much from what I have reported earlier. 

Some other noteworthy and interesting results of the Towers survey though are regarding the number of companies who have not decided what percentage of votes will be considered a favorable vote on say on pay (almost half), the not so surprising percentage of companies who are making changes to pay setting processes (48%), dusting off their CD&As (65%), doing more analysis on the linkage between pay and performance (41%) and making changes to post employment and perks (30%). 

The challenges of conveying complex plans to a potentially not so saavy audience outside of institutial investors may take up a lot more real estate in proxies this year too. Expect to see longer documents with more graphics this year and certainly keep your eyes peeled for your early filing peers to see what they are doing. 

Look for more updates as the weeks go by and we get closer to the heavy filing season.