Stock woes cause Aflac executives to trim, give up bonuses
Aflac Chairman and CEO Daniel P. Amos is giving up his 2008 bonus —- a payout that would have netted him $2.8 million —- because of the Columbus-based supplemental insurer’s depressed stock price.
Kriss Cloninger III, the company’s president and chief financial officer, is reducing his bonus by 35 percent or about $477,000.
The announcements, made after the close of markets Monday, come even though Aflac executives say they outperformed the broader S&P 500 and Dow indices as well as the insurance-focused S&P Life Index in 2008. But Aflac shares have been hammered by the global economic slowdown.
Shares of Aflac, which lost seven percent to close at $15.80 Monday, have tumbled more than 70 percent in the last year.
“Even though Mr. Amos and Mr. Cloninger were entitled to their full operating bonuses, the board agreed to accept their proposals,” said Robert B. “Ben” Johnson, an Aflac board member and its compensation committee chairman. “We support their decision to voluntarily reduce their personal compensation as a demonstration of their commitment to our shareholders.”
Amos, who received a base salary of $1.3 million in 2008, announced in November he would relinquish his “golden parachute,” a severance package worth $13 million, were he to leave the company. That move also was made in response to the weak economy.
In May, Aflac became one of the first publicly-traded American firms to give shareholders a non-binding, advisory vote on executive pay.