CtW Investment Group Claims EA Executives Make Too Much
According to the CtW Investment Group, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick isn’t the only big executive in the industry to be making loads of cash. The investment group sent a letter to shareholders recently that talked about EA paying multi-million-dollar bonuses to executives, particularly CFO Blake Jorgensen and CTO Kenneth Moss, while shares are under-performing and employees are being laid off. While executives have always been bigger money makers in the gaming industry, the investment group is urging shareholders to vote against major equity grants to the company. Apex Legends is a big earner for EA and it’s available for Xbox One, PS4 and PC now, with a Switch release coming soon.
“Dear Electronic Arts shareholder: We urge you to vote AGAINST the “Say-On-Pay” proposal (Proposal 2) at Electronic Arts’ Annual Meeting on August 6, 2020,” said the CtW Investment Group. “The company has gone too far in terms of executive pay, piling on exorbitant equity awards to two executives, Blake Jorgensen (Chief Financial Officer) and Kenneth Moss (Chief Technology Officer), and paying multi-million dollar bonuses following worker layoffs. While shareholders have benefited from appreciation in the company s stock price over the long term, we believe that these gains do not permit the company to indiscriminately pay its executives.”
According to the CtW Investment Group, Blake Jorgensen received a $10 million special equity grant along with his standard $6.5 million annual grant, while Kenneth Moss got a $7 million grant on top of his $5.5 million annual grant. The investment group also claims that the company has strong retention and performance incentive through their annual equity grant amounts and that the executives don’t need additional grants. Their letter to shareholders is apparently meant to stimulate engagement between shareholders and company directors and executives.
Should executives be entitled to big grants if shares are under-performing or they’re laying off employees? Let us know in the comments below!