MetLife Alters Comp to Avoid Berkshire

MetLife altered its compensation guidelines so executives will not be compared to those at Berkshire Hathaway.
By Maria Woehr ,

NEW YORK (

TheStreet

)--

MetLife

(MET) - Get Report

changed its compensation guidelines for senior executives in order to avoid comparisons to

Warren Buffett's

Berkshire Hathaway

(BRK.A) - Get Report

.

MetLife's compensation committee made the change after Berkshire Hathaway was added to the Standard & Poor's Insurance Index, which is used by MetLife to determine appropriate pay for senior managers.

But since Berkshire has a large portion of its business outside of the insurance and the financial services industry -- such as

Burlington Northern Santa Fe

-- MetLife's compensation committee determined the inclusion would throw off MetLife's compensation metrics.

"Without this prospective change, BHI would comprise a disproportionate component of the Insurance Index Comparators, representing over 40% of the total market capitalization of the Insurance Index Comparators as of October 21, 2010," said

the SEC filing.

Berkshire has a 31 percent weighting in the S&P 500 Insurance Index, while MetLife has a weighting of 9.1 percent, according to

Bloomberg.

MetLife's CEO Robert Henrikson made $11.6 million in total compensation last year,

according to a March proxy filing.

--Written by Maria Woehr in New York.

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