Sunday, November 17, 2019

Atlanta, Georgia-Based Graphic Packaging Holding Co's Top-Tier Executives Average Annual Pay and Employee Benefits Increase Was a Robust 13.3% Per Year During the Past Five Years

The fourth Democratic 2020 Presidential candidate debate was held on October 15, 2019 at Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio, a Columbus suburb.  It was good to see a significant improvement in the quality and relevance of the questions asked by the hosts, particularly the major focus on the key economic issues.  Nearly all of the 12 candidates performed well but two of them stuck out as exceptional ..... Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar ..... who both substantially stepped up their insightful assertiveness.  

Amy gave the single most relevant phrase when she asserted that so much of what Elizabeth Warren is proposing are "Pipe Dreams" and have no chance of getting enacted.  Independents and even reasonable Republicans, who will be deciding the 2020 Presidential general election, have zero interest in these fiscally irresponsible "Pipe Dreams".  This is not going to unify the country, which is what the country is desperately seeking in the next President.  Of all the Democratic Presidential candidates, Pete Buttigieg will be the best unifier of a very divided country.

The fifth Democratic 2020 Presidential candidate debate will be held on November 20, 2019 in the Atlanta, Georgia.  Let's hope MSNBC does a much better job this time.  Last time it couldn't control the candidates and also it pretty much ignored the key economic issues.  Glad to see Washington Post is co-hosting this key event.

So far in my research of large US Corps I have shown that their Top-Tier Executives have been rewarded continually with just enormous annual increases in pay and employee benefits, mostly stock equity compensation, to the extent that the key issue to US citizens should be the huge and continuing Income Inequality Expansion which is at the core of many critical problems the US faces.

While increasing the US federal minimum wage will help here, there is a much broader and critical problem that needs to be solved.  The annual percentage increase in the pay and employee benefits of Company non-executive employees are minuscule in relation to that of Company executive employees and this has been going on for decades.  When Corporate CEOs and CFOs primarily view non-executive employees as Costs rather than as People, this is what happens.  And neither political party has had the courage to take on US Corps here.

So I now will be doing research and making posts on the annual pay and employee benefits percentage increases that the Top-Tier Executives of large Georgia Companies were rewarded with in the past five to ten years.  

The 30th Georgia Company I am addressing here is Graphic Packaging Holding Co.

From annual compensation information contained in Company Proxy Statement filings with the US SEC, the chart below shows Graphic Packaging Holding Co's Top-Tier Executives Annual Total Compensation for each of the two consecutive substantially full years of employment for the past five years.
  
Graphic Packaging Holding's Top-Tier Executives Average Annual Pay and Employee Benefits Increase was a robust 13.3% per year during the past five years.


FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE
Dec Dec Dec Dec Dec Dec Dec Dec Dec Dec
Graphic Packaging Holding 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
Doss CEO       7,264       5,976       5,976       5,390       5,390       3,740       3,740       3,136       3,136       2,370
Scherger CFO       2,681       2,155       2,155       2,070       2,070       2,266       2,266       2,017       2,017       2,120
Chaney EVP Human Resources  N/A   N/A 
Nichols Retired EVP Mills Division  N/A   N/A        1,761       1,604       1,604       1,788       1,788       1,677       1,677       1,509
Tashma General Counsel       1,730       1,424
Yost President Americas       2,132       2,016       2,016       1,831       1,831       1,515    
Scheible Former Executive Chairman  N/A   N/A        7,138       9,116       9,116       6,741
Ukropina SVP Consumer Packaging       2,012       1,970  N/A   N/A     
Blount CFO       3,286       2,092
 Totals      13,807     11,571     11,908     10,895     12,907     11,279     14,932     15,946     19,232     14,832
Annual % Change vs Prior Year 19.3% 9.3% 14.4% -6.4% 29.7%
5 Year Average Per Year % Change 13.3%