Relationship-Based Consulting

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,...

The divisiveness of politics is reaching extremes in today’s climate. It’s incredible how the same story can be told by two different reporters and both will express the exact opposite information as fact. Walter Cronkite famously stated: “We all have our likes and our dislikes. But... when we’re doing news - when we’re doing the front-page news, not the back...

December – a time for reflection on the year that was, review of company performance…and a first look at the latest policy updates from proxy advisory firms like Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (“ISS”) and Glass, Lewis & Co., LLC (“Glass Lewis”). While it may seem like the 2017 proxy season was just yesterday, we are looking ahead to what’s in...