Air Canada CEO's compensation falls by over half - to $5.8 million - due to pandemic
#1
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Air Canada CEO's compensation falls by over half - to $5.8 million - due to pandemic
https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/air-cana...emic-1.4954039
MONTREAL -- Air Canada CEO Calin Rovinescu was on track to receive around $12.9 million in total compensation last year, but the value fell by more than half as the airline's shares stalled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As of May 4, when the company's share price closed at $17.63 on the Toronto Stock Exchange, the total compensation of its president and chief executive officer was estimated at $5.8 million. Air Canada's shares closed at $16.76 on Monday.
MONTREAL -- Air Canada CEO Calin Rovinescu was on track to receive around $12.9 million in total compensation last year, but the value fell by more than half as the airline's shares stalled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As of May 4, when the company's share price closed at $17.63 on the Toronto Stock Exchange, the total compensation of its president and chief executive officer was estimated at $5.8 million. Air Canada's shares closed at $16.76 on Monday.
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And what would you suggest be appropriate compensation? He is giving up his base salary for 2020. I might suggest that his performance as CEO over the past 10 years justifies his compensation. Executive compensation has to be competitive. Suggesting the number is too high ignores market forces, past performance, and the basic realities of this type of compensation at present. I think the kind of knee jerk comments you are making are rather unrealistic.
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Ya, I guess their hands must hurt when you have to sign all those pink slips. Oh but wait, that's probably contracted off-shored to their India call centre.
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And what would you suggest be appropriate compensation? He is giving up his base salary for 2020. I might suggest that his performance as CEO over the past 10 years justifies his compensation. Executive compensation has to be competitive. Suggesting the number is too high ignores market forces, past performance, and the basic realities of this type of compensation at present. I think the kind of knee jerk comments you are making are rather unrealistic.
I hope the government will take some ownership in AC when they bail them out with a freeze on executives bonuses and share buy backs.
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For anyone who actually cares how Executive Compensation at AC is determined you can find it here: https://www.aircanada.com/content/da...2020_proxy.pdf
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Anyway. AC is in heavy negotiations with several outside agencies. Boeing and Airbus. Unions. Government. Banks, private equity. Dozens of airports, the Illuminati.
This crisis is very much outside the airlines control, and managing and leading the organization today would be more difficult then it was a year ago.
The line staff that don't have anything to do, well, they don't have anything to do. The executives are busy.
I'm not in a position to judge what the absolute number for his compensation should be, but half of what it was, for what would be more and harder work, seems not unreasonable.
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Still seems overpaid for what amounts to a quasi-public sector job in everything but name. Absurd levels of regulatory capture - best exemplified by elected officials musings about refunds (Canadians - employed or unemployed - exist to prop up airlines, apparently), not to mention the APR farce playing out these days (what was even the point?) and all that.
And nah, the fact that he’s morphed from a glorified rent seeker to having to having to earn his keep these days doesn’t warrant much sympathy. Many of his public sector executive colleagues are working just as hard - if not harder - to keep things going. For a fraction of his salary (even when benefits and gold plated pensions are included).
I have a lot of sympathy for AC line workers and employees/executives in the private sector, but executives in the protected sectors (including airlines, banks and telecoms) aren’t, by definition, in the same league.
His rent seeking party is temporarily suspended? Meh.
And nah, the fact that he’s morphed from a glorified rent seeker to having to having to earn his keep these days doesn’t warrant much sympathy. Many of his public sector executive colleagues are working just as hard - if not harder - to keep things going. For a fraction of his salary (even when benefits and gold plated pensions are included).
I have a lot of sympathy for AC line workers and employees/executives in the private sector, but executives in the protected sectors (including airlines, banks and telecoms) aren’t, by definition, in the same league.
His rent seeking party is temporarily suspended? Meh.
#14
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Has he set it up? Maybe. Maybe not. I think credit for that goes to the former AC COO who lived in ... errr... Ottawa?
Either way, he’s been operating in the least competitive market in the broader “west” (including Australia), that also has the dubious distinction of having some of the weakest regulations in the “west” (APR, flight duty rules). Witness this bizarre refund thing, where the elected Minister - and the CTA - came out defending the right of airlines to hold on to money from unemployed Canadians despite not providing the service (Regulatory capture is, after all, a tenet of rent seeking).
Either way, he’s been operating in the least competitive market in the broader “west” (including Australia), that also has the dubious distinction of having some of the weakest regulations in the “west” (APR, flight duty rules). Witness this bizarre refund thing, where the elected Minister - and the CTA - came out defending the right of airlines to hold on to money from unemployed Canadians despite not providing the service (Regulatory capture is, after all, a tenet of rent seeking).
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I'm not even sure I agree with the premise of this thread.
He was given X shares of stock under some terms based on a current value of Y.
At the end of 2016, Calin was given ~$3.5 million in stock. Looking at January of this year, that means his 2016 stock compensation was ~$14 million. Now it's ~$4 million. Tomorrow it will be something else.
Except that's not how you talk about past compensation. Future swings in share price definitely affect the value of shares/options/RSUs/etc., but it's ridiculous to retroactively say a prior year's total comp was different than it actually was, just because there were market movements.
He was given X shares of stock under some terms based on a current value of Y.
At the end of 2016, Calin was given ~$3.5 million in stock. Looking at January of this year, that means his 2016 stock compensation was ~$14 million. Now it's ~$4 million. Tomorrow it will be something else.
Except that's not how you talk about past compensation. Future swings in share price definitely affect the value of shares/options/RSUs/etc., but it's ridiculous to retroactively say a prior year's total comp was different than it actually was, just because there were market movements.