口译双语：CEO挣钱和公司业绩成正比？

2010-07-21 00:00:00来源：福州新东方学校

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　　中高级口译：CEO挣钱和公司业绩成正比？

　　When it comes to CEO compensation, companies and their shareholders mostly get what they pay for.

　　An analysis done for The Wall Street Journal by Philadelphia-based consulting firm Hay Group found that companies run by the nation's best-paid chief executives typically deliver better-than-average shareholder returns.

　　The study, which looked at 127 CEOs with at least three years on the job at companies with annual revenue of $4 billion or more, comes amid continuing public concern about big executive pay packages, as well as political pressure to link executive pay more tightly to corporate performance.

　　Steven Kaplan, a professor at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business and a longtime student of executive compensation, said the Journal study indicates a 'strongly significant' alignment between corporate performance and CEO pay.

　　Mr. Kaplan said the analysis shows a 1% increase in annual shareholder returns over the past three years equated to about $1 million in a CEO's pockets.

　　David Wise, a Hay Group senior consultant, divided the 127 companies studied into thirds based on their shareholder returns over the past three years. Though CEO pay has been trending downward for the past two years, Mr. Wise found CEOs of the best-performing companies earned about twice as much as the chiefs of the weakest performers.

　　Stock performance, however, is a far from perfect indicator of a CEO's mettle. Share prices move for many reasons outside a CEO's control. Indeed, during the credit crunch the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged by more than half over a 17-month span.

　　The correlation between higher pay and strong corporate performance, though strong at the top-tier of corporate performance, wasn't universal. Some of the CEOs whose companies were in Mr. Wise's 'middle third' of performers, outearned the CEOs of the best-performing companies.

　　Such anomalies lead some analysts to question how much performance influences CEO pay. Paul Hodgson, a senior research associate at the Corporate Library, a governance research firm, points out that the typical company in the study didn't produce any shareholder returns between 2007 and 2009, meaning that investors would have been better off buying less-risky government bonds.

　　'If that's the case, [the CEOs] shouldn't be getting anything beyond base salary,' Mr. Hodgson says.

　　Lisa Lindsley, director of capital strategies for the American Federation of County, State and Municipal Employees, says the results suggest 'we have a lot of work to do to link pay and performance.' Ms. Lindsley says she was struck by the number of CEOs who took home above-average paychecks while their companies posted subpar returns.

　　Three CEOs in the survey -- John W. Rowe of Exelon Corp., Richard D. Fairbank of Capital One Financial Corp. and Robert J. Stevens of Lockheed Martin Co. -- earned more than $90 million over the past three years while their shareholders lost money. In each case, much of that total came from exercising stock options in 2007 and 2008, before the recession took hold.

　　在首席执行长的薪酬问题上，公司及股东基本上做到了付出与回报成正比。

　　《华尔街日报》通过费城咨询公司Hay Group所做研究显示，由全美最“贵”CEO掌舵的公司所实现的股东回报通常高于平均水平。

　　研究针对的是127位在年收入至少40亿美元的公司中最少担任了三年CEO的管理人士。眼下，CEO的高薪问题引发了公众的持续担忧，同时来自政界的压力要求将CEO薪酬与公司业绩更紧密地结合起来。

　　芝加哥大学布斯商学院(University of Chicago Booth School of Business)教授、长期研究高管薪酬问题的卡普兰(Steven Kaplan)说，本报的研究显示出企业业绩和CEO薪酬之间存在着具有重要意义的联系。

　　卡普兰说，报告显示，在过去三年中，年度股东回报率每上升1%就意味着其CEO要入帐约100万美元。

　　Hay Group高级顾问怀斯(David Wise)将这127家公司按照过去三年的股东回报情况平均分成了三类。怀斯发现，虽然过去两年中CEO薪酬呈现下降趋势，但那些表现最佳公司的CEO收入比在表现垫底的公司中任职的同行多了将近一倍。

　　不过，股票表现却远非体现CEO才干的完美指标。太多影响股价走势的因素非CEO所能控制。在导致道指在17个月时间里蒸发过半的信贷危机中尤其如此。

　　虽然高薪和好业绩之间的联系在第一类公司中体现得很明显，但它也出现了例外情况。根据怀斯的排名，一些在中游的第三类企业中供职的CEO比那些在最佳公司中工作的同行挣得还多。

　　这样的反常现象让一些分析师质疑业绩情况究竟能在多少程度上影响CEO薪酬。公司管治问题研究公司Corporate Library的资深研究员哈吉森(Paul Hodgson)指出，上述研究报告涉及的公司通常在2007至2009年之间没有产生任何股东回报，这就意味着投资者还不如通过购买低风险的政府债券来获得收益。

　　哈吉森说，在这种情况下，CEO除了基本工资外就不该再有别的收入。

　　美国州、县、市劳工联盟(American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees)的资本策略主管林德赛(Lisa Lindsley)说，这一结果显示在联系薪酬与业绩方面我们还有许多工作要做。她说那些所在公司收益低下而收入却高于均值的CEO人数让自己感到震惊。

　　艾索伦(Exelon Corp)的CEO罗伊(John W. Rowe)、美国第一资本金融公司(Capital One Financial Corp.)的菲尔班克(Richard D. Fairbank)以及洛克希德-马丁公司(Lockheed Martin Co.)的斯蒂文斯(Robert J. Stevens)在过去三年中收入超过了9,000万美元，而这些公司的股东却在赔钱。在他们的个案中，其收入大多来自于2007和2008年的股票期权收入，当时衰退还未开始。