Relationship-Based Consulting

The corporate structure over the past 30 years has been predicated mainly around the regulations necessitated by actions taken by corporations that have ultimately resulted in negative consequences. A constant balancing act of an open-market economy vs. necessary regulation has seen corporations combat the forces of what they can and cannot do. Now, as we endure yet another macro-economic financial...

/ BANKRUPTCY COMPENSATION The concept of excessive executive compensation is a seemingly frequent topic that garners significant reaction regardless of personal viewpoints. The essence of the topic is intended to elicit a moral response, asking us to question fairness in the context of our own situations. Everyone seeks what is fair (not to be confused with equal) believing that a...

According to a recent survey by Willis Towers Watson, in mid-February some 15% of participant companies expected material impacts from COVID-19 to persist over the next six months. As we all know, the situation has continued to evolve around the world, injecting increasing levels of uncertainty in the corporate world, sending financial markets into disarray and adding to our worries...

MAJOR COMPONENTS (OR "BUCKETS") OF EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION ARE FUNDAMENTALLY SIMILAR IN PUBLICLY TRADED COMPANIES ACROSS ALL INDUSTRIES. We at L&A understand that although similar in function, there are certainly unique characteristics in every company’s respective compensation philosophy and pay programs. It is, however, worth mentioning that no matter how unique a company may be (i.e. industry), L&A has found more...

.. Not to be left out of the transformative world we are living in today, corporate governance norms, board compositions, and board compensation are undergoing material change. As many companies are entering the time of year where they review their director pay programs, we thought it timely to touch on this topic, review some trends taking hold and put forth some...

Recently, some of the team at L&A was afforded a great opportunity to participate in TPH’s Energy Roundtable discussion with multiple constituents involved in the corporate governance landscape within the industry. TPH (Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co.) is an integrated investment and merchant bank providing high quality advice and services to the energy industry and L&A was honored to participate. We...

FINANCIAL RESTRUCTURINGS, WHILE NOT AN ENJOYABLE PROCESS, ARE SOMETIMES A NECESSARY STEP TO ENSURE FUTURE FINANCIAL SUCCESS. In order to achieve a successful restructuring, companies need to deploy the right compensation strategies in this volatile environment that will retain and motivate key talent to see the process through. In this article, we review the tools available to companies going through...

Introduction We are now in the 8th year of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (“Dodd-Frank”). Among other things, the implementation of Dodd-Frank meant the majority of public issuers had to learn to navigate the waters of shareholder advisory votes on executive compensation, better known as “Say on Pay”. Every year, management teams, boards of directors, outside...

Is gender pay equity gap as big of an issue in 2018 as it has been in previous years? We are all told that gender pay equity is measured on the same scale, but in reality the gap virtually disappears when analyzing the same level, company, and function. Most articles cite “The Simple Truth about the Gender Pay Gap” graph...

Over the past eighteen months, discussions on incentive compensation structures have been taking on a different element at a rapid clip in boardrooms across the country – as a result of investor pressures in the energy industry, annual incentive and long-term incentive performance metrics are getting the full health physical treatment.  As we move into the second half of 2018,...