Incentive plans still changing.

• Author: Heffes, Ellen M.
• Position: EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION - Survey - Brief article

Surprisingly, 70 percent of companies among the largest 200 companies in the S&P 500 Index reported changes to their executive compensation programs.

The changes appeared to be primarily related to the broad-based stock price drop from Dec. 31, 2007 to Feb. 28 2009. The greater the drop in its stock price, the more likely a company reported change to its program.

These are among the findings of the 2009 Trends in Executive Compensation Survey, conducted by compensation and corporate governance consulting firm James F. Reda & Associates in New York.

Among the findings regarding performance measures and their impact on the company, in general, incentive plans had changed as follows:

* A shift away from long-term incentives (LTI) to more focus on short-term plans;

* Short-term incentive plan performance measures shifted to profit and cash flow from capital efficiency;

* Long-term incentive plan...