5/12/2010
NEWS BRIEFS
Is Fastenal’s Oberton Underpaid?
At $945,092, is Fastenal CEO Will Oberton underpaid?
Oberton was ranked the 10th most underpaid public CEO in the U.S., according to Bloomberg Businessweek.
Oberton’s 2009 compensation – about $454.37 per hour based on a 40-hour work week – was 15% of the $6.1 million, or $2,933 per hour, considered “fair pay” according to Bloomberg’s methodology, which evaluates CEO pay using a formula weighted two-thirds on stock performance and one-third on company revenue.
Oberton’s base salary remained unchanged at $485,000, as did the more than $1 million in stock options he received the past two years, according to Associated Press reports.
But Oberton reportedly did not receive a non-stock incentive payment given in previous years, including one totaling $1.2 million in 2008.
Fastenal’s earning fell 34% last year to $184.4 million amid a 17.5% sales decline to $1.93 billion. Company shares rose 19.5% during an otherwise challenging year that saw the company shed 1,500 workers and reduce store openings by more than half the number of locations opened in 2008.
Oberton has led Fastenal since 2002, when he took over for Robert Kierlin, one of the five founders of the company.
In 1997 Inc. magazine named Kierlin the cheapest CEO in America. Reporter Marc Ballon wrote that Kierlin “is to cheapness what Michael Jordan is to basketball: the best ever.”
Oberton told FIN in a 2002 interview that while he may spend his personal money a bit differently, Kierlin’s fiscal legacy at Fastenal endures.
“At work I’m as frugal as he is.” ©2010 GlobalFastenerNews.com
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