A breath of fresh air…
When I got out of the airport in Orlando last night, it was a swampy 85 degrees, even though it was nearly 7 pm. Good thing that there was a breath of fresh air delivered to me in the form of the 10-K that Kinder Morgan (KMR) filed last night:
Unlike many companies, we have no executive perquisites and, with respect to our United States-based executives, we have no supplemental executive retirement, non-qualified supplemental defined benefit/contribution, deferred compensation or split dollar life insurance programs. We have no executive company cars or executive car allowances nor do we offer or pay for financial planning services. Additionally, we do not own any corporate aircraft and we do not pay for executives to fly first class. We are currently below competitive levels for comparable companies in this area of our compensation package, however, we have no current plans to change our policy of not offering such executive benefits or perquisite programs.
How many other large public companies are doing this? My guess would be that you could count them on one hand. Clearly, this deserves a gold star. Several of them, in fact.
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March 2nd, 2007 at 10:30 am
This is an outstanding filing. I simply cannot believe that in this day and age, any publicly traded company operates in the manner that has been described. This should become the benchmark by which all other publicly traded companies are measured.
March 2nd, 2007 at 11:37 am
That sounds almost funny. Is April being advanced to March this year ?
March 2nd, 2007 at 11:53 am
Too bad that the company is going private.
March 2nd, 2007 at 1:04 pm
I echo James Ho’s comment. Since the Chairman/CEO Richard Kinder has an approved price and date for taking the company private, you might say he’s just thinking ahead and not wasting corporate assets that are all going to be his in six months.
He’s no longer wasting shareholder assets when he flies the corporate jets. It’s money out of his own pocket.
Even without that caveat, I’d need a whole lot more information about executive perks associated with the numerous interlocking KinderMorgan partnerships before I’d award them the gold star in that category. Who’s to say that KMR execs aren’t just wearing a different affiliate hat when they dip into the perks jar?
March 2nd, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Kinder Morgan’s managers have always been impressive, and not coincidentally a few of them are named Kinder or Morgan… They consider their compensation to be in the form of dividends paid on the shares they own… Outstanding if you think about it.
As for the shares going private… Management is taking the KMI shares private… KMR and KMP will still trade publicly.
March 2nd, 2007 at 5:02 pm
Jason: Thanks for the clarifications. That’s the sort of information that’s valuable in weighing Michelle’s gold star award.
There are good-guy CEO’s and managers out there–Warren Buffet immediately comes to mind. I’d like to think the KM folks are cut from similar cloth. But it seems there are so few that we all need insights like yours. So again, thanks.
Any more Kinder Morgan fans out there to add to Jason’s remarks?
March 2nd, 2007 at 9:37 pm
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=businessNews&storyid=2007-03-02T192017Z_01_N24275339_RTRUKOC_0_US-COLUMN-LIFTING.xml&src=nl_usbusinessclose
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors will be getting a lot more information about CEO pay and perks this year.
Companies will also have to reveal something else: just how much chief executives stand to take home if they’re forced out.
As part of revised regulatory disclosures on executive pay, companies now must calculate potential severance costs as well as the “parachute pay” top executives are eligible to collect if their company is acquired and they lose their job.
March 6th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
What about Kindar’s recent write-down related to Terasen? While their lack of executive comp & perks is not the norm, not all of their recent actions have been shareholder friendly. The comments made by Ulricii in regard to their interlocking partnerships also bears some consideration.