Sunday, August 25, 2019

San Antonio, Texas-Based Technology Cloud Company Rackspace Hosting Inc's Top-Tier Executives Pay Raise Was an Off-the-Charts 50.2% Per Year For Seven of the Past Ten Years. Rackspace Hosting Was Taken Private in 2016 and Thus Didn't File Proxy Statements Containing Executive Compensation Information With the SEC For Three of the Past Ten Years.

The third Democratic 2020 Presidential candidate televised debate will be held in Houston, Texas on September 12 and 13, 2019.  Texas is also the home state of Julian Castro and Beto O'Rourke, who have both gained significant momentum in the past month.

The key issue to Texas citizens should be the huge and continuing Income Inequality Expansion which is at the core of many critical problems the US faces.

Thus I will be doing research and making posts on the average pay raise per year that the Top-Tier Executives of Texas Companies were rewarded with in the past ten years.  And I'll start with the large Texas Non-Oil & Gas Companies. 

The 24th Texas Non-Oil & Gas Company I am addressing here is Rackspace Holdings Inc, which has disclosed Top-Tier Executive Compensation information in Company Proxy Statements filed with the SEC for seven of the past ten years due to it going private in 2016. 

From annual compensation information contained in Company Proxy Statement filings with the US SEC, the chart at the bottom below shows Rackspace Holdings Inc's Top-Tier Executives Annual Total Compensation for each of two full years of employment for these seven years.

Rackspace Holdings Inc's Top-Tier Executives Pay Raise was an off-the-charts 50.2% per year for these seven years, which is the 7th highest of the 24 very large Texas Non-Oil & Gas Companies I have addressed so far.
  1. Copart +183.2% per year for the past ten years
  2. American Airlines Group +85.9% per year for nine of the past 10 years
  3. Helen of Troy +84.4% per year for the past ten years
  4. Invitation Homes +78.6% per year for the past two years
  5. Tyler Technologies +61.2% per year for the past ten years
  6. Vistra Energy +50.6% in the past year 
  7. Rackspace Holdings +50.2% per year for seven of the past ten years
  8. LyondellBasell +45.9% per year for the past eight years
  9. Celanese +27.8% per year for the last ten years
  10. Yum China Holdings +23.8% per year for the past 5 years
  11. D R Horton +20.1% per year for the past ten years
  12. Dell Technologies +18.8% per year for seven of the past ten years
  13. Sysco +18.7% per year for the past ten years
  14. Waste Connections +18.1% per year for the past ten years
  15. Southwest Airlines +18.0% per year for the past ten years
  16. El Paso Electric Co +15.5% per year for the past ten years
  17. Atmos Energy +14.4% per year for the past ten years
  18. AT&T +13.8% per year for the past ten years
  19. Waste Management +13.2% per year for the past ten years
  20. Match Group +12.2% per year for the past six years
  21. Texas Instruments +7.2% per year for the past ten years
  22. Crown Castle International +6.3% per year for the past ten years
  23. Kimberly-Clark +5.8% per year for the past ten years
  24. CenterPoint Energy +5.8% per year for the past ten years
There have been many US Government laws enacted in the past two decades that have substantially increased income inequality expansion but the only highly effective US Government law enacted by either party in the past two decades that has substantially reduced income inequality expansion is Obamacare and the political right is continually trying to repeal and replace it and three of the top four Democratic Presidential candidates now leading in the polls are effectively running as their principal issue to do in essence precisely the same thing ..... repeal and replace Obamacare ..... but to do it with either a pure or a version of Medicare For All.  

The pure Medicare For All advocated by both Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and which was co-sponsored in a US Senate bill by Kamala Harris is off-the-charts enormously expensive and would take up an enormous amount of wasted time with no positive result since it has no chance of getting passed legislatively.  The US Government CBO hasn't been able to score the cost of a pure version of Medicare For All so far because the proposals have not been nearly specific enough.  If and when they are specific enough, the CBO scoring will make people shake in their boots and wonder just how any Presidential candidate could propose something so fiscally preposterous.  Just given their near-sighted stance on a pure version of Medicare For All, if the Democratic nominee is any of the three of them, it will be extremely difficult for any of them to beat Trump in the general election.  It is that simple.

On the other hand, if Elizabeth Warren got more rational and wisely altered her position some on Medicare For All, she would have a very good chance of beating Trump. 

My objective is to get a better handle on just why the US and particularly here Texas has such massive continuing Income Inequality Expansion ..... it appears to be predominantly about the relative long-term annual pay raise percentages for the executives of a Company vs the many non-executive employees of a Company, coupled with the stock price appreciation subsequent to the time the company executives were rewarded in their pay with stock equity compensation.

To fix Income Inequality driven mainly by Company and its Board of Director choices on Percentage Annual Pay Raises, the US Government should step in and pass wisely-designed, simple but effective Fair Pay Raise Income Inequality Narrowing Company tax incentives for rewarding non-executive employees with fair pay increases ..... the carrot ..... and Company tax disincentives for rewarding executive employees with clearly excessively high pay increases ..... the stick.  I am certain ..... it is simple math ..... that this tax proposal would be very effective in substantially reducing the huge income inequality expansion that has occurred for decades in annual percentage pay raises between company executives and the rest of the company employees. 

And the continuing annual net tax revenues raised by the US Government here should be set up in a separate fund to be used only for wise additional income inequality narrowing initiatives.  This fund should be run by an outside group made up entirely of minorities harmed the most by Income Inequality Expansion of the past decades  .....all women, all blacks, all Latinos, all other non-white people, all past and present union members, all LGBTQ, all non-employee contract workers and all middle and lower income people of all ages, including those retired.

Also, the US Government should require all US Corporate Boards to include at least one worker representative and to exclude any Company Executive.

FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE
Dec Dec Dec Dec Dec Dec Dec Dec Dec Dec
Rackspace Hosting 2018 2017 2017 2016 2016 2015 2015 2014 2014 2013
Top-Tier Total Total Total Total Total Total Total Total Total Total
Executive Comp Comp Comp Comp Comp Comp Comp Comp Comp Comp
$ 000s $ 000s $ 000s $ 000s $ 000s $ 000s $ 000s $ 000s $ 000s $ 000s
William Rhodes CEO               6,936     12,503     12,503       2,339
Karl Pichler CFO       2,334       3,413       3,413       1,644
Mark Roenigk GM SVP Worldwide Operations       5,212       3,132       3,132       1,497
Scott Crenshaw SVP Strategy and Product-US  N/A   N/A 
Tiffany Lathe General Counsel       1,159       1,918       1,918          704
Lanham Napier Former CFO  N/A   N/A 
Graham Weston Former CEO  N/A   N/A 
Joseph Saporito Chief Accounting Officer          829          964
 Totals                              15,641     20,966     21,795       7,148
Annual % Change vs Prior Year -25.4% 204.9%
2 Year Average Per Year % Change 89.8%
FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE
Dec Dec Dec Dec Dec Dec Dec Dec Dec Dec
Rackspace Hosting 2013 2012 2012 2011 2011 2010 2010 2009 2009 2008
Top-Tier Total Total Total Total Total Total Total Total Total Total
Executive Comp Comp Comp Comp Comp Comp Comp Comp Comp Comp
$ 000s $ 000s $ 000s $ 000s $ 000s $ 000s $ 000s $ 000s $ 000s $ 000s
William Rhodes CEO       2,339       1,438       1,438          889    
Karl Pichler CFO       1,644       1,753       1,753       1,072       1,072          569          569          385    
Mark Roenigk GM SVP Worldwide Operations       1,497       1,467       1,467       1,587       1,587       1,347  N/A   N/A     
Tiffany Lathe General Counsel          704          532    
Lanham Napier Former CFO          768       2,540       2,540       4,152       4,152       2,239       2,239       6,730       6,730       2,351
Graham Weston Former CEO          215          215    
Joseph Saporito Chief Accounting Officer  N/A   N/A     
Alan Schoenbaum General Counsel       1,326       1,130       1,130       1,106    
Lewis Moorman Pres Chief Strategy Officer       4,773       1,459       1,459          935          935       2,477       2,477       1,328
Jim Lewandowski SVP Co-GM Hybrid  N/A   N/A        1,564       1,755       1,757          867  N/A   N/A 
Bruce Knooihuizen CFO      N/A   N/A        1,164       1,240  N/A   N/A 
John Lionato SVP Operations  N/A   N/A 
 Totals        8,493       9,075     13,101     10,265       9,834       6,845       6,664     11,699       9,207       3,679
Annual % Change vs Prior Year -6.4% 27.6% 43.7% -43.0% 150.3%
5 Year Average Per Year % Change 34.4%
7 Year Average Per Year % Change 50.2%




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