General Electric’s decision to revamp Chief Executive Officer Jeff Immelt’s pay plan two weeks before its annual meeting, fearing that shareholders would vote against it after Institutional Shareholder Services gave a negative recommendation, certainly hasn’t gone unnoticed by either companies or shareholders.
The move seems to prove once more that the new say-on-pay rule, implemented by the Securities and Exchange Commission under a provision of the Dodd-Frank Act, is changing the power dynamics between companies and shareholders in terms of executive pay plans. So far this proxy season, shareholders have voted against compensation plans at eight companies, including Hewlett-Packard and Stanley Black & Decker.
