With Links to Board, Chief Saw His Pay Soar on Home Services

Nov

With Links to Board, Chief Saw His Pay Soar

posted by admin in Home Depot

Every October, some 50 former Home Depot managers, calling themselves the Former Orange-Blooded Executives, after the home-improvement chain’s trademark bright orange color, gather in Atlanta to reminisce, chat about new jobs and pass around pictures of their children.

The discussion inevitably turns to the changes at Home Depot under its chief executive, Robert L. Nardelli. A growing source of resentment among some is Mr. Nardelli’s pay package. The Home Depot board has awarded him $245 million in his five years there. Yet during that time, the company’s stock has slid 12 percent while shares of its archrival, Lowe’s, have climbed 173 percent.

Some of the former Home Depot managers think they know the reason, and compensation experts and shareholder advocates agree: the clubbiness of the six-member committee of the company’s board that recommends Mr. Nardelli’s pay.

Two of those members have ties to Mr. Nardelli’s former employer, General Electric. One used Mr. Nardelli’s lawyer in negotiating his own salary. And three either sat on other boards with Home Depot’s influential lead director, Kenneth G. Langone, or were former executives at companies with significant business relationships with Mr. Langone.

The co-founders of Home Depot, Arthur M. Blank and Bernard Marcus, grew very rich on company stock that soared in value. But under them, Home Depot embraced a culture of restraint when it came to pay, said Paul D. Lapides, a corporate governance expert at Kennesaw State University in Georgia. “Bernie and Art took home a salary of $1 million or less and refused bonuses. The attitude was one of ‘we’re all in this together,’ ” said Mr. Lapides, who has never worked at Home Depot but has studied the company for years.