SunTrust CEO’s pay down 38 percent last year

SunTrust Banks said Monday that Chief Executive William H. Rogers Jr.’s compensation declined nearly 38 percent last year, to $5.9 million, making it the second big Atlanta company in a few days to report big pay cuts for top executives in 2013.

Friday, Coca-Cola disclosed that it cut CEO Muhtar Kent’s 2013 pay by one-third, to $20.4 million. A non-cash accounting change affecting the estimated value of his pension accounted for $6.6 million of the $10.1 million pay cut. The rest of the decrease came from a smaller bonus.

Executive pay raises have been shrinking at many public companies across the nation in the wake of “say-on-pay” votes that are now a feature at most annual shareholder meetings. The non-binding votes, encouraged under the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law, allow investors to weigh in on how executives are paid.

Slowing pension value growth likewise accounted for about one-fourth of the reduction in Rogers’ compensation last year, SunTrust disclosed Monday in a proxy filing.

The largest Georgia-based bank also cut its top executives’ cash bonuses and stock awards significantly last year after the company’s stock performance lagged the overall banking industry and profits and other performance measures missed targets.

Last year, SunTrust said it earned $1.3 billion, short of the $1.5 billion target that the company’s board of directors had set for executives to get full bonuses. And even though SunTrust’s stock return last year was over 30 percent, that was several percentage points below most other big banks’ stock returns.

Rogers got a $1.3 million bonus in 2013, down from $1.9 million the previous year. His total stock awards and stock option grants were valued at $3.6 million, down from $5.7 million in 2012. Rogers’ salary was $900,000, same as the previous year.

One thing that did go up for most of the SunTrust executives was the value of perks such as use of company jets and company contributions to their deferred pay and 401(k) retirement savings.

Rogers’ perks were valued at $159,651, up from $99, 473 in 2012.

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Russell Grantham

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