Submission to the Productivity Commission Executive Remuneration Inquiry Production Commission Locked Bag 2 Collins St. East Melbourne VIC 8003 By e‐mail:
[email protected] This submission to the public inquiry on executive remuneration conducted by the Productivity Commission does not necessarily aim at answering most of the questions outlined in the issues paper produced by the Commission, but rather at attempting an answer to one question that is surprisingly not often asked and has yet to receive a more precise answer: considering that the Australian population generally agrees that company executives, especially CEOs and managing directors, are overpaid, what is the quantum or the relative level of this overpayment? This submission is largely based on the work and methodology I developed in my research project on CEO remuneration, completed in 2007 for the attainment of a Masters degree in Applied Finance at the Financial Services Institute of Australasia (FINSIA; now dispensed by Kaplan Professional). I have updated the sample used in the analysis to include all ASX200 companies between 2000 and 2008. While I refer to various results from my research project occasionally in this submission, I am focusing here on the methodology used to measure excess CEO remuneration and on the analysis of these measurements. For the interest of brevity, I chose not to include or attach to this document a copy of my report. Should the Commission be interested in the other results from my research project, I will obligingly supply a copy of the report on request. Patrick Robitaille 29th May 2009 …but we must never forget that excellent leaders cannot be produced by rational methods, but only by luck.