When Disney selected Josh D’Amaro to succeed Bob Iger as CEO, the company awarded rival Dana Walden a $5.26 million stock grant plus annual compensation of about $27 million. Morgan Stanley similarly paid $20 million bonuses to each of two runners-up, Andy Saperstein and Dan Simkowitz, when Ted Pick became CEO in 2023. A FW Cook study of 100 large-cap U.S. companies found that retention grants have a limited retentive effect of approximately two to three years. Companies are more than twice as likely to offer these grants when hiring external CEOs rather than promoting internally. Top executive turnover typically costs many multiples of the person’s annual salary.
Source: Read the original article
