Monday, November 11, 2019

Elkhart, Indiana-Based Recreational Vehicle Manufacturer Thor Industries Inc's Top-Tier Executives Average Annual Pay and Employee Benefits Increase Was a Blistering 20.1% Per Year During the Past Ten Years

"Red for Ed Action Day" is where thousands of Indiana public school teachers will be going to the Indianapolis State Capital Building on November 19, 2019 to lobby for better teacher pay and working conditions and also better resources for students.

It's good to see that Unions are now stepping up all over the US in order to obtain a better deal for their union members.  All Democratic Presidential candidates are on the side of unions in their talking points.  But I think the most effective in actually getting excellent outcomes for union members will be the financially-savvy, extremely bright Pete Buttigieg, who with his calm, good listener consideration-for-others demeanor, is also very gifted in the negotiating process.  Further, Mayor Pete's Health Care Plan will not take away union members excellent health care insurance coverage which they have fought hard to get, whereas Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren's Medicare For All Health Care Plan will. 

There have been many US Government laws enacted in the past two decades that have substantially increased income inequality expansion including the year after year after year of annual furtive tax extenders of predominately special interests additional tax loopholes, which both the Democratic and Republican Establishments voted for under the radar screen every year just before calendar year end, but nothing was even close to being more income inequality expanding than the Trump Tax Cuts Act.

On the other hand, 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.

My objective is to get a better handle on just why the US and particularly here Indiana has such massive continuing Income Inequality Expansion ..... it appears to be predominantly about the relative long-term annual pay and employee benefits percentage increases 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.

So far in my research of large US Corps headquartered in many US States all over the country, 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, even 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.

But it's not just in the private sector.  There are also large differences in the annual percentage raises of pay and employee benefits of executives and non-executives in the non-profit sector, including hospitals.

And it's also in state and local government entities.

With its decisions on state education funding with the resultant extremely low total annual percentage pay and employee benefit increases for State public school teachers for decades but especially so since Republicans have taken total control of the Indiana State Government, it's pretty clear to me that the Indiana State Government primarily views public school educators as simply Costs in a State Fiscal Budget, rather than what they are ..... the critical drivers of the future success of the State of Indiana.

Also for decades, but particularly since Republicans have taken complete control of the Indiana State Government, it appears that Indiana Public School Superintendents or their equivalents as well as their direct reports have received annual percentage pay and employee benefits increases which have been substantially higher than what public school teachers have received.

In all fairness, going forward there should be some form of clawbacks for these past excessive pay and employee benefits rewarded to members of these Indiana State Education Administrations which cut into what State public school teachers received.

After all, the clear driver of Indiana’s future are the public education teachers in the classroom, not the Education Administration.

Therefore Indiana State Legislatures should set maximum annual percentage pay and employee benefits increases for every Superintendent and his/her direct reports to correct for this unfairness in pay.  Thus the allocation to State public education teachers would be much higher than they otherwise would have been. 

I think it would be very helpful to see how these extremely low annual percentage pay and employee benefits increases of Indiana State public school teachers compares with the annual percentage pay and employee benefits increases of the Top-Tier Executives of Indiana publicly-held companies.  Publicly-held companies are required to disclose this Top-Tier Executive compensation information in their annual Proxy Statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Thus I will now be doing research and making posts on the annual pay and employee benefits percentage increases that the Top-Tier Executives of the largest Indiana Headquartered Companies were rewarded with in the past five or ten years in order to give a better understanding of the enormous gap between the annual percentage pay and employee benefits increases of the Top-Tier Executives of these Indiana Companies and the Indiana public school teachers.  

I will be doing this research generally by largest stock market capitalization and thus the 18th Indiana Company that I am addressing here is Recreational Vehicle Manufacturer Thor Industries Inc.

From annual compensation information contained in Company Proxy Statement filings with the US SEC, the chart at the very bottom below shows Thor Industries Inc's Top-Tier Executives Annual Total Compensation for each of two consecutive substantially full years of employment for the past ten years.
  
Thor Industries Inc's Top-Tier Executives Average Annual Pay and Employee Benefits Increase was a blistering 20.1% per year during the past ten years which is the 10th highest of the 18 large Indiana headquartered companies I have addressed so far and also which is probably reasonably close to twenty times what Indiana State public school educators received as an average annual percentage pay and employee benefits raise during the same ten-year period.
  1. OneMain Holdings +1,383% per year for the past six years
  2. Biomet +120.5% per year for five years
  3. Simon Property Group +53.7% per year for the past ten years
  4. Allison Transmission Holdings +37.6% per year for the past five years
  5. Mead Johnson Nutrition +32.9% per year for eight years
  6. Steel Dynamics +32.3% per year for the past five years
  7. Elanco Animal Health +30.2% for annual 2018
  8. NiSource Spinoff Columbia Pipeline Group +25.2 per year for three years
  9. Berry Global Group +22.9% per year for the past eight years
  10. Thor Industries +20.1% per year for the past ten years
  11. NiSource +19.5% per year for the past five years
  12. Cummins +18.1% per year for the past ten years
  13. Zimmer Biomet Holdings +15.3% per year for the past five years
  14. Duke Realty Corp +13.8% per year for the past five years
  15. Anthem Inc +13.5% per year for the past ten years
  16. Eli Lilly % Co +13.3% per year for the past five years
  17. Vectren +13.2% per year for nine years 
  18. Allegion plc +11.3% per year for the past six years
FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE
July July July July July July July July July July
Thor Industries 2019 2018 2018 2017 2017 2016 2016 2015 2015 2014
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
Peter Orthwein Executive Chairman       1,422       2,083       2,083       1,891       1,891       1,452       1,452       2,191       2,191       1,989
Robert Martin CEO       9,049     14,993     14,993     13,269     13,269       9,320       9,320       7,232       7,232       6,325
Colleen Zuhl CFO       2,444       3,765       3,765       3,382       3,382       2,199       2,199       1,364       1,364       1,038
Todd Woelfer General Counsel       2,075       3,132       3,132       2,826       2,826       1,908       1,908       1,364       1,364       1,081
Kenneth Julian SVP Admin and HR       1,588       2,367       2,367       2,141       2,141       1,624       1,624       1,091       1,091          817
 Totals      16,578     26,340     26,340     23,509     23,509     16,503     16,503     13,242     13,242     11,250
Annual % Change vs Prior Year -37.1% 12.0% 42.5% 24.6% 17.7%
5 Year Average Per Year % Change 12.0%
  FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE
July July July July July July July July July July
Thor Industries 2014 2013 2013 2012 2012 2011 2011 2010 2010 2009
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
Peter Orthwein Executive Chairman       1,989       1,930       1,930       1,653       1,653       1,489       1,489          834          834          236
Robert Martin CEO       6,325       6,076       6,076       3,839    
Colleen Zuhl CFO       1,038          651    
Todd Woelfer General Counsel       1,081          918    
Kenneth Julian SVP Admin and HR  N/A   N/A 
Dominic Romeo Former CFO          538       1,440
Christian Farman Former CFO  N/A   N/A        1,650       2,411       2,411       2,399       2,399          672
Andrew Imanse President Bus Group       1,109          974          974          888    
Richard Riegel Former Senior Group President          853          973          973       1,171       1,171          676
Ronald Fenech President Recreation Vehicles       7,740     14,889
Walter Bennett Chief Administrative Officer          650          469
 Totals      10,971     11,015       9,115       6,466       5,130       5,761     12,613     19,293       5,054       2,053
Annual % Change vs Prior Year -0.4% 41.0% -11.0% -34.6% 146.2%
5 Year Average Per Year % Change 28.2%
10 Year Average Per Year % Change 20.1%

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