Home Depot Chief Craig Menear saw a slight dip in pay last year, to $11.5 million, as do-it-yourself homeowners continued to drive sales and profit growth for the Atlanta home improvement retailer.
Home Depot has been prospering in recent years as rising home prices have helped loosen the wallets of homeowners. Last year was no exception. Home Depot's profits jumped almost 14 percent last year, to $8 billion. Revenue increased 7 percent, to $94.6 billion.
The results meant executives exceeded almost all of their performance targets, Home Depot said in its annual proxy filing. But the company didn't beat its bonus targets by much, partly because Home Depot didn't sell and replace its merchandise — a measure called "inventory turns" — as often as hoped. The result: smaller bonuses for the top executives compared to the previous year, so that annual pay dropped slightly for most.
Menear, 59, who has been Home Depot’s CEO since late 2014, saw a decline of less than 1 percent in his total compensation last year.
His $1.3 million salary was the same as the previous year, while his stock and option awards, totaling $5.2 million, increased by more than $200,000. But his annual bonus dropped by almost 10 percent from 2015, to about $2.8 million.
