Moving the Market -- Tracking the Numbers / Outside Audit: Stock Options: Fewer but Better?; Yes, They May Be Harder To Come By for the CEOs, But Existing Ones Pay Off
Dow Jones Newswires</br></br>LESS, BUT more.</br></br>Even though U.S. companies were cutting back on stock-option grants to top brass last year, chief executives still were making out handsomely, because the market value of their existing options soared.</br></br>A review of a new crop of U.S. proxy filings by Watson Wyatt Worldwide, a Washington, D.C., consulting firm, lends fresh support to recent trends in compensation, including the escalation of restricted stock awards to compensate CEOs, while companies simultaneously scale back on stock options.</br></br>The firm reviewed proxies of 373 companies where CEOs remained in their jobs over a three-year period. The most recent proxies were filed through the end of March, covering companies whose fiscal years ended between September 2003 and January 2004.