Compensation Goodies

There's been a flood of reports about executive compensation in recent weeks. That's because new SEC regulations force companies to disclose far more about executive pay -- not only salary and bonus, but options grants, restricted stock, deferred compensation, retirement benefits and all kinds of "perks" including use of corporate aircraft and corporate promises to cover the executives' taxes on those benefits!

For years these numbers have been buried in corporate proxy statements, or not disclosed at all. But the SEC under Chairman Christopher Cox has demanded more information for shareholders. This year, it must all be formatted in a prescribed table in corporate proxy statements, those dense little printed booklets that arrive along with the photo-laden annual reports.

In future years, all corporate financial information will be available a more useful format, submitted in a new interactive computer format (XBRL) in coming years. But at a panel I moderated in Washington, D.C. last week, Chairman Cox made a surprising announcement.

All of the data in the new executive compensation tables for the 500 largest reporting companies will be translated into the new user-friendly format of XBRL by this June. That means you'll be able to go to the SEC Web site and compare all of the reported data by company and category with a click of your mouse.