Pete Lupo
Executive Compensation Checklist for Pre-IPO Companies

1. Establish a Compensation Philosophy
A compensation philosophy serves as the foundation for all compensation decision-making including:- Objectives of the compensation program
- Total pay mix (i.e., short-term vs. long-term; performance vs. retention/attraction)
- Desired competitive market position (e.g., peer group median)
- Pay-for-performance approach
- Use, type and amount of equity
- Approach to benefits and perquisites
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Disclosing executive compensation practices and decisions and managing to a compensation philosophy is important since the approach a company takes must be disclosed in the Compensation Discussion & Analysis (CD&A) section of the public company’s proxy statement. As a public company, the compensation philosophy disclosure does not need to be detailed, but it needs to accurately reflect how the Compensation Committee manages executive pay.
2. Develop a Public Company Peer Group
It is not unusual for a private company to prepare competitive pay analyses on an as-needed basis to address current issues and understand market practices. These analyses are generally not prepared annually and may not be based on public company practices. Most public companies, in contrast, review the total pay levels of their senior leadership team annually with direct comparisons to public company practices driven by CD&A disclosure needs and Say-on-Pay votes. The approach to constructing a public company peer group is an important step in ensuring the Compensation Committee understands public company practices and should follow these generally accepted practices:- Use revenues, market cap, assets, industrial classification or other characteristics to select companies of similar size.
- Review business models to ensure peers have the same or similar businesses. (This is particularly important if a company’s long-term incentive plan uses
3. Understand Equity Usage
Many private companies that are managing to an exit event set aside 8% to 15% of shares for management. Most of these shares are typically granted to the management team in a single equity grant, while the remaining shares are set aside for future grants to existing and new hires. In many cases, members of the management team may not receive a subsequent equity grant until the IPO. Assuming the cash compensation levels (salary plus bonus) are competitive, Compensation Committees have been comfortable that setting aside 8% to 15% of equity for management will result in fully competitive total pay levels, especially given the expectations of high equity returns upon a successful IPO exit. In the past, it was not unusual for a private company to expect to have an exit event in a three-to-four-year time frame. In today’s economy, particularly since the financial crisis of 2008, it is not unusual for a private company to have an exit event in eight or more years. The amount of time currently needed for an IPO event results in private companies using substantially less equity than a public company over a similar time period. The following table illustrates this concept. Assume a private company issues 12% of outstanding shares to management. Contrast this to the amount of shares that could be granted to management of public companies. For purposes of this illustration, we show the mean and maximum amount of shares that could be granted to employees and Directors of public companies based on current Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) guidelines. We also selected three industries for this comparison. These industries run the spectrum of low, medium and high users of equity.
4. Assess Executive Compensation Competitiveness & Design
The type of equity granted at private companies differs from public company practices as well. Private companies rely heavily on time-vested restricted stock and stock options and, in many cases, performance-vested options. This type of program is much different from public company practices where the vast majority of equity programs include two to three equity vehicles and where performance-vested stock options are highly uncommon. The design of the long-term incentive (LTI) plan is one element of the executive compensation program that will need immediate study for a few reasons:- A program that is heavily weighted with time-vested restricted stock or a program that only has time-vested restricted stock and stock options will be criticized by proxy advisory firms. These designs are not considered performance-based equity programs under some proxy advisory policies.
- Performance-vested stock options are very rare since two hurdles need to be met before they gain any value: the stock price must rise and the performance condition must be met. Management teams universally deride these programs as being unmotivational since the likelihood of realizing value under this design can be substantially more difficult than more typical programs. Also, most Compensation Committees agree that other equity designs can be far more effective with motivating and rewarding executives for creating value.
5. Investigate Board Pay
The Board of Director pay practices of a privately-held company differ substantially from public company practices in several ways. In general, venture-backed private company Boards typically include individuals who are employees of the major investors and they may or may not be paid as a Board member. The Board may also include executives with substantial operating experience, financial expertise or other high-level management skills needed at the Board level. These are always paid positions. For private companies, the Board pay mix will be heavily weighted with equity while cash compensation will be modest when compared to public company practices. The chart below illustrates the differences. This chart compares median Board pay at private companies with $25M to $50M in revenue to public companies with revenues ranging between $50M to $500M. The public company data includes larger companies to illustrate how Board pay will need to change over time once a company becomes public and grows.
6. Study Proxy Advisory, Compliance & Disclosure
Private company Compensation Committees have much less concern than do public companies about proxy advisory firm policies on compensation. Additionally, public company pay practices may simply not be important to private company Compensation Committees. Therefore, it is likely a private company will have pay practices that are not common in public company practices and/or may not be aligned with proxy advisory policies. Because of the influence of advisory firms, it is always important to audit a private company’s executive compensation program to understand how it differs from public company practices and to understand if any changes need to be made over time. For example:- Private companies favor the use of stock options and restricted stock while public companies are more likely to include performance-vested equity in their long-term incentive programs especially given proxy advisory policies covering equity practices. Proxy advisory firms want to see a significant part of the long-term incentive grant made with performance-vested vehicles and often do not consider either restricted stock or stock options to be performance-based. Understanding if the design needs to be modified and the future timing of any change is important as the exit event takes shape.
- Many public companies have Section 162m umbrella plans that allow them to minimize or eliminate the lost tax deduction for non-performance based pay. This law does not apply to private companies and it is another aspect of executive compensation that should be understood and addressed in the plan design.
- Public companies need to prepare an annual CD&A as a part of the proxy statement. The CD&A needs to discuss, among many items, how pay decisions were made including disclosing in some detail incentive plan goals and performance against goals. If discretion is used in assessing performance, the CD&A needs to state the discretionary factors taken into account in determining award levels. Private companies have no similar disclosure obligation and can liberally use internal judgment on pay decisions without having to outline goals, performance attainment against goals and how discretion was used.