Traditionally, our business experiences a slight slow down at the start of each year. However, with a new administration in Washington focused intently on executive pay (among many other items), the first weeks of 2009 have kept us extremely busy. Even with the unofficial start of proxy season at least a month away, our research team is working non-stop to field media requests for data on various pay packages. We’ve already had 75 media mentions through the middle of February, which compares to 26 in all of January and February last year. Needless to say, what little respite we thought we’d have before the annual flood of proxy filings isn’t happening this year. With the attention of so many Americans focused directly on economic and executive compensation issues, it will once again be an interesting proxy season.

My Field of Dreams

With all of the controversy surrounding Citigroup’s sponsorship of the new Mets ballpark, light bulbs started going off in my head. If you pull up my high school yearbook (River Dell Regional High School Class of 1985), you’ll see that my dream was to own the NY Mets. While Equilar is doing well, we’re not doing that well. But in the interim, naming rights to the new ballpark wouldn’t be a bad place to start. Yes, $20 million per year for 20 years is a bit steep, but it doesn’t hurt to dream a little. As they say in the New York Lotto, “Hey, you never know…”