The Council’s 2008 focus list is comprised of five large companies with consistently low stock performance and persistently high total CEO pay, relative to peer companies. For a company to be eligible for the focus list, it had to be a Standard & Poor’s S&P 500 company that: (1) underperformed the S&P 500 index and the median total stock returns for its industry group over the one-, three- and five-year period ended June 30, 2008; and (2) had total CEO pay exceeding the median total CEO pay of its peer group in the past one-, three- and five-year periods.
The Council is not making the focus list public, to encourage companies on the list to discuss their compensation practices with Council members. Members may click here to go to the members-only focus list page (requires being logged-in).