Earlier this month in an annual meeting, Aflac’s shareholders had their say on the company’s executive compensation policies. With 93% of Aflac’s shareholders saying “yes” to the compensation packages of its five top executives, Aflac became the first American public company to give shareholders a nonbinding voice on executive pay including its CEO’s compensation package of nearly $12 million. This extraordinary vote is of course the exception as there were more than 90 shareholder proposals this year alone that demanded companies give the same “say on pay” right.
Moreover, other companies should look toward Aflac as a model to what it actually means to be shareholder-friendly. To compensation experts like Irving Becker of the Hay Group, it is no surprise with the outcome as “Aflac’s CEO has created a lot of value for shareholders over his long tenure, and his pay package is shareholder-friendly.” According to Aflac’s press release, since Daniel Amos became Aflac’s CEO in 1990, the Company’s “total return to shareholders, including reinvesting cash dividends, has exceeded 3,867%, compared with 69% for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and 583% for the S&P 500.”
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