Amphenol: CEO has a Cash-Heavy Pay Package

Annual meeting May 18

Total compensation for Amphenol President and CEO R.A. Norwit increased by 13 percent to $13,092,697. While the total is a smaller number than some we’ve seen, Amphenol is a smaller company. Its pay exceeds that of peers by a considerable amount. Norwit received an increase of nearly $4 million dollars in his cash bonus and smaller increase in stock option grant. The Wall Street Journal recently released its large annual compensation review which includes helpful tables. One of the ways it can be sorted is by amount of cash. Norwit’s cash compensation makes up 41 percent of his total package, an extraordinarily high percentage. Equity awards, to at least some degree, align the executives personal financial interests with those of shareholders. Cash offers no such incentive.

The equity that Norwit is awarded is fully in the form of stock options, a practice shareholders increasingly object to.

The company, which describes itself as “a vertically integrated manufacturer with extensive labor-intensive operations in numerous low-cost countries” calculated that its median annual wage was $16,042. The company offers additional unrequired disclosure that the median wage for U.S. employees was $55,513. The pay ratio of median employees was 816:1 for all employees and 236:1. In 2020 those rations were 536:1 and 146:1 respectively.

This proposal is likely to receive a high level of opposition.