Wal-Mart's Greg Foran No. 1 In Exec Pay At $19.5M

Thanks to Wal-Mart’s policy of front-end loading stock awards for top executives, Greg Foran was the higest paid executive in Arkansas during 2014.

Foran received stock awards in April 2014 for his performance as CEO of Walmart Asia and then more stock as part of a three-year performance incentive program when he was named in August 2014 to succeed Bill Simon as CEO of Walmart stores in the United States.

Foran’s stock awards were worth almost $15.8 million. That, plus a $500,000 cash bonus, pushed Foran’s total compensation to $19.5 million for the fiscal year that ended Jan. 31, 2015.

That was enough to edge out his boss, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. CEO Doug McMillon.

McMillon’s total compensation last year was just under $19.4 million — down nearly $6 million from the previous year, when he had been promoted and similarly benefited from bonus shares.

Foran and McMillon occupy the top spots on this week’s list in which executives of 19 publicly traded companies headquartered in Arkansas are ranked by total compensation as disclosed in the companies’ most recent proxy statements. In most cases, the fiscal year ended Dec. 31, 2014; exceptions are Tyson Foods Inc. (Oct. 3, 2014), Wal-Mart and Dillard’s Inc. (Jan. 31), Acxiom Corp. (March 31) and America’s Car-Mart Inc. (April 30).

Get the Lists

A total of 94 executives are ranked, and their total compensation ranged from Foran’s $19.5 million to the $182,435 in salary and other compensation that Michael K. Borrows earned in just over three months as chief financial officer of USA Truck Inc. of Van Buren.

Arkansas Business’ list ranks executives by total compensation as reported in each company’s annual proxy statement. The list breaks down the total into salary, the calculated value of stock and stock options awarded, bonuses or other cash performance pay, plus any other compensation reported to the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission.

The 94 executives were paid a total of $277.9 million in their most recent fiscal years, of which only $46.7 million — less than 17 percent — came in the form of base salary. Performance-based pay is preferred by proxy advisory firms like Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. of New York, whose recommendations to institutional investors have shaken up “say on pay” votes.

In mid-2014, for instance, Bank of the Ozarks Inc. of Little Rock changed its executive compensation strategy after a negative report from ISS resulted in a dramatic drop in the percentage of proxy votes that approved of the old strategy. CEO George Gleason’s base salary dropped from $1.73 million in 2013 — the highest on the list — to $1 million in 2014, but his total compensation increased from $4.3 million to $5.1 million.

In 2014, the highest salary, just under $1.3 million, was paid to Roger Jenkins, president and CEO of Murphy Oil Corp. of El Dorado. His total compensation of $12.8 million put him at No. 3 on the list.

Cash realized by the exercise of stock options is reported on the list but is not included in the compensation total; however, it added another $31.7 million to the total earned by executives last year.

If windfalls from stock options were included, Tyson Foods Chairman John H. Tyson, who realized $11.3 million by cashing out options, would be No. 1 with total income of $20.15 million. Instead, he’s at No. 10 with $8.85 million.

Of the 94 executives on the list, only 25 exercised stock options in the periods covered by the most recent proxies.

Nine Women

Among the 94 executives on the list are nine women. The only woman making her first appearance is No. 41 Shelley Simpson, EVP, chief marketing officer and president of Integrated Capacity Solutions for J.B. Hunt Transport Services of Lowell.

Four of the women are members of the Dillard family that controls Dillard’s Inc: No. 37 Drue Matheny, No. 63 Denise Mahaffy, No. 88 Alexandra Dillard and No. 93 Annemarie Dillard.

The highest paid woman on the list is No. 8 Rosalind G. Brewer, whose $9.5 million in total compensation as CEO of Wal-Mart’s Sam’s Club division during the year that ended Jan. 31 was down from $11.7 the previous year.

Nada C. Stirratt, who ranked 29th, resigned on March 31, the end of Acxiom’s fiscal year. Her total compensation of $2.5 million included severance benefits of more than $900,000.

The other women on the list are No. 30 Judy R. McReynolds, president and CEO of ArcBest, and No. 34 Mindy K. West, chief financial officer of Murphy USA.

New Names

Foran, Simpson and Borrows were among 19 new names on this year’s list. The other newcomers are:

• No. 6 David Cheesewright, EVP of Wal-Mart and president and CEO of Walmart International;
• No. 25 Walter K. Compton, secretary of Murphy Oil;
• No. 36 K. Todd Montgomery, vice president of Murphy Oil;
• No. 51 J. French Hill, now congressman from the 2nd Congressional District who was briefly an EVP of Simmons First National Corp. of Pine Bluff after it acquired Delta Trust & Bank, where Hill was CEO;
• No. 52 Robert E. Gunderman, CFO and treasurer of Windstream Holdings Inc. of Little Rock;
• No. 57 Marn K. Cheng, senior vice president of retail operations for Murphy USA Inc. of El Dorado, which was spun off of Murphy Oil in 2013;
• No. 58 J. Lavon Morton, SVP of risk and chief audit executive at ArcBest Corp. of Fort Smith;
• No. 61 Michael R. Johns, ArcBest’s VP and general counsel;
• No. 70 Jeffrey H. Lester, who was hired as EVP of risk management and safety by USA Truck in 2013 and resigned in August 2015 after the new CEO, Tom Glaser, asked him to work in Van Buren on a daily basis rather than commuting in from Dallas;
• No. 72 John C. Eichler, Windstream’s controller;
• No. 75 Russell A. Overla, who was EVP of truckload operations for USA Truck until his resignation in September;
• No. 78 Allen W. West, who was promoted to CFO at P.A.M. Transport Inc. of Tontitown in September 2013;
• No. 85 Don “Trey” Barrett III, COO of Inuvo Inc., which last week completed the move of its headquarters from Conway to Little Rock;
• No. 90 R. Thomas Fritsche and No. 91 J. Matthew Machen, both EVPs for Bear State Financial Inc. of Little Rock; and
• No. 92 Randall G. Gottlieb, president of Advanced Environmental Recycling Technologies of Springdale.

Robert Gunderman’s brother, Kenneth, is now CEO of the Windstream REIT spinoff, Communication Sales & Leasing Inc. of Little Rock. CS&L has not completed its first fiscal year and its executives were not included in this year’s compensation research.

Already Gone

Stirratt, Hill, Lester and Overla aren’t the only executives who have left the jobs they had in 2014.

Others who are already gone include:

• No. 5 James V. Lochner, who retired in September 2014 as Tyson Foods’ chief operating officer;
• No. 7 Jeffery R. Gardner, who resigned as CEO of Windstream a year ago this week and in August was named CEO of Monitronics International of Dallas;
• No. 16 James I. Freeman, who re-tired as CFO of Dillard’s on Feb. 1;
• No. 21 Brent Whittington, who resigned as CPP of Windstream in September 2014 and bought Moots Cycles of Steamboat Springs, Colorado, on Oct. 1 of this year;
• No. 46 John Simone, whose health forced him to resign as CEO of USA Truck in July and to be succeeded by Glaser;
• No. 49 Roy M. Slagle, who retired as SVP of ArcBest’s ABF division in October 2014;
• No. 68 John C. Rudolfs, who resigned as EVP of marketing for Murphy USA in May 2014;
• No. 86 Clifton R. Beckham, who resigned as CFO of USA Truck in September 2014 and was subsequently hired as president and COO of Earl L. Henderson Trucking of Caseyville, Illinois;
• No. 89 Christopher M. Wewers, who resigned from Bear State Financial in March and is now chief financial officer at Southern Bancorp Inc. of Arkadelphia.

No. 59 David L. Bartlett has announced that he will retire from Simmons First National Corp. next month.