The highest paid CEO of a Georgia public company should get a negative vote on pay from shareholders, according to an influential advisory firm.
Ronald Clarke, the CEO of Gwinnett County-based Fleetcor Technologies, made nearly as much last year as the CEO of Wal-Mart, the world's biggest company, according to a ranking by Equilar, an executive research firm.
Now, another firm, proxy advisor Institutional Shareholder Services, has recommended that shareholders vote no in Fleetcor's non-binding say-on-pay vote, which comes up at the company's June 21 annual meeting.
ISS valued Clarke’s 2016 compensation at $35.8 million. In a report released this week, it said he got an “outsized” grant of equity that included financial targets set lower than other metrics. His equity grant alone was “over three times greater than the median total pay of CEOs at the companies similar in size and industry.”
While Fleetcor’s total stock returns over time have been solid, Clarke’s pay is “excessive in consideration of its magnitude and design,” according to ISS.
A representative of Fleetcor has previously said it does not comment on executive compensation.
The earlier pay ranking by Equilar, which uses its own methodology, put Clarke's compensation at 45th in the nation, just behind that of the CEOs for Starbucks and Wal-Mart and ahead of the leaders of much larger Georgia-based companies, including Home Depot, UPS, Coca-Cola Co. and Delta Air Lines.
Fleetcor supplies fuel cards, toll cards and other credit card-like services for use by employees of companies and governments. It had $1.83 billion in revenue last year.
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