GE reports CEO pay ratio at 157-1 of median employee

Hour (Norwalk, CT)

March 13--Citing "poor performance" last year by General Electric, the conglomerate's board of directors did not award former CEO Jeff Immelt a bonus for 2017, estimating his total compensation at $8.1 million in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Under new CEO John Flannery, GE reported a $10 billion loss in the fourth quarter of 2017, after increasing reserves needed to cover unanticipated claims for a GE Capital insurance operation it had discontinued. GE shares closed Monday at $15.10, down more than $10 from August.

Immelt retired as CEO last August and was paid $270,000 in his first pension payout, having accrued nearly $85 million in the company's retirement plan over 35 years, according to the company's investor proxy filed Monday with the SEC. Immelt realized another $25 million in stock compensation awarded in prior years under vesting rules that restricted him collecting those benefits until 2017. The company calculated at $133,000 what it paid for Immelt's personal use of company aircraft.

GE paid Immelt $820,000 in relocation benefits after he moved the company's headquarters to Boston in August 2016, and another $660,000 in "relocation tax benefits" as described in GE's investor proxy. Flannery received more than $1.7 million in combined relocation benefits for the Boston move as well as for costs incurred in moving to a new Chicago headquarters for GE Healthcare, which Flannery led prior to his promotion to CEO of GE.

Flannery similarly was denied a bonus -- a decision made with his concurrence, GE stated -- with Flannery's compensation totaling $9 million last year. GE reported a 157-1 ratio of its CEO pay to that of its median employee, a GE Healthcare employee in Germany making just over $57,000, with companies required to disclose CEO pay ratios this year and going forward under new SEC rules. In Immelt's last full year as GE CEO in 2016 when he received $23.1 million in compensation, the company's CEO pay ratio would equate to about 375-1, assuming similar pay for the median GE employee.

Flannery will preside over his first GE annual meeting on April 25, with the event to be held at a GE center for 3D manufacturing in Imperial, Pa., west of Pittsburgh.