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Intel shareholders revolt against Pat Gelsinger's pay package

(2022/05/17)


Intel shareholders voted to reject the compensation packages for the chipmaker's top execs, according to regulatory documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), although the vote was non-binding on the company.

The [1]Intel Form 8-K submission to the SEC dated May 12 shows that about 1.78 billion votes were cast against Intel's executive compensation of its listed officers, with about 921 million votes cast in favor, nearly a two-to-one ratio against the packages.

This is not a new development, and last year's compensation measures also failed to gain shareholder approval.

[2]

In a statement, Intel said that it takes its investor feedback very seriously, and the company is committed to engaging with them and addressing their concerns.

[3]

[4]

These concerns seem to be about the level of reward that some Intel executives have been receiving, with shareholders seeking to link pay to performance. Last month it was disclosed that the chip giant paid chief executive Pat Gelsinger an eye-opening $178 million in total compensation during 2021 after his return to the company in February that year.

As The Register has already noted, this means that [5]Gelsinger's pay was more than 1,700 times higher than the median employee pay at Intel. However, investors were also reported to be unhappy about Gelsinger's plans to revitalize the business with a significant expansion in manufacturing facilities that will impact the Intel's bottom line for several years to come.

[6]Meta hires network chip guru from Intel: What does this mean for future silicon?

[7]If you've got Intel inside, you probably need to get these security patches inside, too

[8]How Intel and AMD hope to win the cloud security game

[9]Intel taps Scale Computing for low-power edge platform

It isn't just Intel that has seen disgruntled investors vote to reject executive compensation schemes. Last week it was reported that shareholders at Dutch multinational Philips had voted decisively against awarding a €1.8 million ($1.89 million) bonus to chief executive Frans van Houten, with almost 80 percent of shareholders at the meeting rejecting it. As with Intel, the vote is apparently non-binding on the company.

Feike Sijbesma, chairman of Philips' Supervisory Board, [10]said in a statement: "We have ... taken note of the advisory vote on the 2021 Remuneration Report. We take the feedback seriously and will continue the constructive dialogue and consultation with our shareholders."

[11]

In the case of Philips, the share price has more than halved over the past year, with Van Houten telling shareholders [12]last month the company planned to counteract "mounting inflationary pressure" by "implementing price increases and taking additional cost measures to mitigate these headwinds."

Also last week, Bloomberg [13]reported that two companies that advise investors recommended that Amazon shareholders vote against the compensation packages for its top executives, including CEO Andy Jassy, in an upcoming annual meeting set for May 25.

According to the newswire, Institutional Shareholder Services Inc called Jassy's pay package "excessive" and claimed that Amazon's compensation program is not linked to any objective performance criteria.

[14]

Jassy was apparently awarded a pay package valued at about $212 million, mostly in stock grants that will only pay out in future, when he was promoted from [15]heading up AWS to being CEO of the whole company last year. ®

Get our [16]Tech Resources



[1] https://regmedia.co.uk/2022/05/17/intel.jpg

[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YoPGpqdBurwiem1D3xmEJAAAAIM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0

[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YoPGpqdBurwiem1D3xmEJAAAAIM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YoPGpqdBurwiem1D3xmEJAAAAIM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[5] https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/04/intel_ceo_made_178m/

[6] https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/16/meta_intel_jon_dama/

[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/12/intel_product_bugs/

[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/12/intel_amd_security/

[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/11/intel_scalecomputing_edge/

[10] https://www.philips.com/a-w/about/news/archive/standard/news/press/2022/20220510-philips-annual-general-meeting-of-shareholders-approves-dividend-and-other-proposals-made-to-shareholders.html

[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YoPGpqdBurwiem1D3xmEJAAAAIM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[12] https://seekingalpha.com/article/4503367-koninklijke-philips-n-v-phg-ceo-frans-van-houten-on-q1-2022-results-earnings-call-transcript

[13] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-12/amazon-shareholders-should-reject-ceo-pay-package-advisors-say

[14] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YoPGpqdBurwiem1D3xmEJAAAAIM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[15] https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/03/jeff_bezos_jassy/

[16] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/



Missing Engineering Cost

Arthur Kater :-D ☺

Salaries in the hundreds of millions of US Dollar a year... That's just absurd!

devin3782

1700 times the average employees salary!

"We take feedback very seriously..."

Andre Carneiro

Yeah, I'm sure you do...

Also, I found it interesting that Mr Gelsinger has a strategy that may or may not pay off in the long run and the shareholders are annoyed about that. That seems a tad suicidal to me. If they focus on the quick buck today, there will be no Intel tomorrow. So many companies are hindered by boards and investors wanting quick returns...

Re: "We take feedback very seriously..."

Joe W

That.

It is not suicidal for the shareholders, which have no actual commitment to the company. They own shares, but are mostly interested in the share price rising and getting some payout now. They are not necessarily in it for the long run. Yes, this system is broken. I feel that paying the execs partly in shares with an obligation to hold them for at least X years is an incentive for them to not f' up the company's future - or would be, if they would not be paid eye watering sums anyways...

Re: "We take feedback very seriously..."

BOFH in Training

I like your idea of shares being awarded with an obligation to hold it long term. They may also do it with options.

It will force the senior execs to think of where the company is heading years after they have left, before they actually get any benefit.

the company is committed to engaging with them and addressing their concerns.

sabroni

If i tell you to fuck off then technically I am addressing your concerns.

A straight line may be the shortest distance between two points,
but it is by no means the most interesting.
-- Doctor Who: The third Doctor