CEO Perks Decline in ’09

Perquisites have been a lightning rod in the exec comp debate, and many companies are knocking them out altogether in an attempt to avoid criticism, as a Wall Street Journal article reports today in conjunction with their CEO pay study.  Gross-ups were the biggest targets, with many CEOs seeing them cut or eliminated altogether. But some CEOs have avoided the perks axe: William Ford Jr. of Ford Motor Co. got a $900,000 bump in his security payouts over the past two years, presumably based on threats from auto-bailout naysayers (though Ford claims it’s a revision in how they report these figures).

Clawbacks also got some attention in the Journal piece: those who stay abreast of exec comp trends will remember that they rose from around 12% of the Fortune 100 in 2003 to a new high of 72.9% in 2009.

Expect plenty of pot-stirring next week in the aftermath of the New York Times Top 200 pay study, which is based on Equilar data and will be released on Sunday.