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Most got pay boosts in '07

The Gazete Colorado Springs
May 11, 2008

Ramtron directors boosted executive bonuses and stock awards last year as recommended by Boston-based compensation consultant DolmatConnell & Partners to reach the median level of similar-size semiconductor companies, according to the company's proxy filing.

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Nike stint, Mars deal rewarding for Wrigley CEO Bill Perez

TheDeal.com
May 1, 2008

Earlier we noted the big payday ahead for Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co. execs if the acquisition of their company by Mars Inc. goes forward as expected. That post focused on svp for worldwide strategy Peter Hempstead. Below, compensation consultant Jack Dolmat-Connell fills in the picture for Wrigley CEO Bill Perez..

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Credit Crisis Accounting Issues

Investor Relations
May, 2008

The settlement of $14.5 million was, as the company stated, done most likely to avoid lengthy and costly litigation.   (There would have been more cost and risk involved to pursue a potential favorable outcome, thereby possibly making matters worse). So from this perspective, it was the correct path to take.

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Why Companies Are Holding Out On Performance-Goal Disclosure

Agenda
April 28, 2008

Jack Dolmat-Connell, CEO of the executive compensation firm DolmatConnell & Partners, says some of the medium-sized companies he deals with have relatively high growth targets, but they don’t want to reveal those numbers to Wall Street analysts.  page 7

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Rewarding Failure

Fortune Magazine
April 15, 2008

A recent study by the compensation consulting firm DolmatConnell & Partners found that CEO pay in the companies of the Dow Jones industrials increased at a blowout 15.1% annual rate over the past decade.

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Boards Flex Their Pay Muscles

The Wall Street Journal
April 14, 2008

Directors needed to know whether "what the company was expecting to do was in line with those external forecasts," says Mr. Dolmat-Connell, head of DolmatConnell & Partners Inc. in Waltham, Mass. A mismatch arose at a small medical-device maker, prompting its pay panel to award senior executives fewer options and restricted shares this winter than the CEO had sought, he says.

The chief squawked. Pay-panel members "told him he could go play with his marbles elsewhere," Mr. Dolmat-Connell says. "He left a bit chastened."

 

Integrating executive comp after a deal

Corporate Dealmaker
March 27, 2008

The compensation packages offered to executives of a target company should be a key consideration for acquirers. "People want to know early in the game what's in it for them and whether they will have the potential in the new compensation scheme to make what they think they should," writes Jack Dolmat-Connell, president of the compensation consulting firm Dolmat Connell & Partners, in the latest Corporate Dealmaker.

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For Top Bear Executives, 'Paltry' Exit Packages

The Wall Street Journal
March 19, 2008

The firm's highest officers earned more than $381 million in cash, stock and other compensation from fiscal 2004 through 2006, the most recent figures available, according to Jack Dolmat-Connell, president of DolmatConnell & Partners, a pay-consulting firm in Waltham, Mass.  That's more than the $236 million J.P. Morgan's deal to acquire Bear Stearns was worth when it was announced on Sunday.

 

Frank urged hard look at executive compensation  - Changes could require paybacks when bets sour

Boston Globe
March 19, 2008

Jack Dolmat-Connell, a compensation consultant in Waltham who works for midsize public and private companies, said he expects many more questions to be raised over pay following the collapse of Bear Stearns.
...In a paper he distributed yesterday, Dolmat-Connell called Bear Stearns' compensation structure "a very good design that went bad."  The structure incorporated good practices like low base salaries but likely encouraged too much risk-taking that led to the problem, he said.
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CEO Pay Increases Slightly Outpace Results

Directorship
March 3, 2008

While the media has been feasting on the controversial debate over whether or not executive compensation has been soaring in recent years, a new study by DolmatConnell & Partners reveals that CEO pay increases at companies listed on the Dow Jones Industrial Average only slightly outpace financial performance increases. 
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Skin in the Game

CFO.com
March 1, 2008

The difficulty with setting guidelines is striking the right balance between creating accountability and making the goals attainable.  "Companies need to really play this out and see if executives will be able to meet the guidelines," says Jack Dolmat-Connell, head of executive-compensation consultancy DolmatConnell & Partners.  "On the flip side, if they're too low, they're meaningless."
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EMC chief got $20m pay deal - Critics complain, citing firm's slack stock performance

ExecuNet - CareerSmart Advisor

While many CEOs and senior-level executives at the largest public companies certainly have their eyes on these issues, should all executives (regardless of pay and status within their organizations) be paying attention? The answer is yes. “Executive compensation has become the new Sarbanes-Oxley with all of the media coverage,” says Jack Dolmat-Connell, president of Waltham, Mass.-based compensation consulting firm DolmatConnell & Partners.
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Should Shareholders Approve Exec Comp Plans?

Investor Relations
March 2007

“The executive compensation issues today are not the result of boards acting egregiously or nefariously, but rather stem from boards not spending enough time to fully understand the complexities of executive pay and all of the potential outcomes of a pay package. If boards have diffi culty understanding the subtleties and complexities involved in the design of executive pay packages, which take hundreds of hours of work by consultants, lawyers, and accountants to design, how are John or Susan Q. Public going to understand them enough to vote on them? The answer is, they won’t. The vote will be emotional, not rational and fully informed.” 
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Springloading Options Stumps The Experts

Compliance Week
January 2007

Jack Dolmat-Connell, president of executive compensation consultancy DolmatConnell & Partners, says the question of whether companies can or should springload option grants is proving to be a line in the sand. “Do you see ethics and morals as gray area or a hard-and-fast line?” he asks. “Companies that would do this see it as a gray area.”

Dolmat-Connell doesn’t believe companies are acting deceitfully if they choose to springload—but a negative perception of springloading still exists, he says, making it a dangerous practice. “This is negatively perceived in the marketplace, like backdating of options, and that will cause companies to really look at this and make some decisions for themselves.”  
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Making Money

Telegram & Gazette
December 17, 2006

Some of the region’s larger companies are following a national trend by putting more of their equity-based compensation at risk — linking it to increases in stock price, earnings per share or other goals crafted by directors. The Hanover Insurance Group Inc. of Worcester has been using performance-based restricted stock for top executives for the past two years, and Staples Inc. of Framingham said its proxy next year will detail an executive compensation philosophy that places even more emphasis on pay for performance. 
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Gilded Paychecks: Pay Packages Allow Executives to Jump Ship With Less Risk

NY Times
December 2006

W. James McNerney Jr., a former superstar manager at General Electric, received not one, but two such deals in recent years, worth tens of millions of dollars. In each deal, he was given any bonuses, stock options, restricted stock and pension benefits that he would have abandoned by leaving his previous employer.
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Upfront: Boards' Concern Over CEO Pay Mounts

Business Finance

December 2006

Compensation consultants are hindered in their efforts to create effective CEO salary programs by a shortage of credible information sources on pay-for-performance, according to Jack Dolmat-Connell, president and CEO of DolmatConnell & Partners Inc., compensation advisers in Waltham, Mass. "Frequently, some -- and even perhaps the majority -- of executive compensation consultants poorly construct comparative groups from which to compare client performance," he says. "Many compensation consultants use suspect data sources. Almost no executive pay-for-performance studies exist in the marketplace.
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Funding Retiree Benefits—Yes, You Can!

Business & Legal Reports

August 2006

What comes to mind when you read the words "airline industry" and "steel companies"? If you’re like most Americans, right now you’re picturing two industries hit hard by a bumpy economy. One of the most devastating effects from the collapse of several prominent steel companies and major airlines was one which would continue to touch the employees for the rest of their lives—the steep reduction or total loss of their retiree healthcare coverage.
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Few Opting Out

Industry Week
July 26, 2006

Few technology companies are totally removing stock options from their executive incentive-pay packages, indicates a study by DolmatConnell & Partners. "While firms are generally employing more restricted stock and performance-based LTI [long-term incentive] plans -- firms are nearly always combining such awards with stock options," says the Waltham, Mass., consulting firm. 
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Surveying the Field: Upside-Down Returns

The Wall Street Journal
July 2006

The news: The highest-paid high-technology chief executives deliver the worst returns, according to a study by consulting firm DolmatConnell & Partners. 
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Underperforming CEOs getting paid too much

www.management-issues.com
June 2006

As the amount earned by the CEOs of U.S. technology companies continues to rise above the rate of inflation, new figures reveal that poorly-performing tech firms are continuing to pay their bosses too much.
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