CEO Pay Watch Christopher & Banks
LuAnn Via, president and CEO
Total compensation: $3,525,808 for the year ended Jan. 31
Salary: $842,308
Other compensation: $18,500
Restricted stock: $0
Long-term incentive pay: $0
Exercised stock options: $2,665,000
Total shareholder return: -27.0 percent
Note: Despite not receiving a bonus, LuAnn Via took home more in 2014 than the $846,496 she made the year before because of her stock options. Via exercised 500,000 shares of the 2 million options she was awarded when she joined the company on Nov. 26, 2012. The options were worth $2.7 million.
The women's clothing chain failed to reach the threshold performance for operating income, gross margin return on inventory and net sales, so no Christopher & Banks executives earned incentive bonuses. Sales for the year ended Jan. 31 were $418.6 million, down 3.9 percent from the previous year and below the minimum bonus target of $460.3 million.
Via did get a 6.25 percent increase to her base salary to $850,000 per year.
In April, an activist shareholder, Jonathan Duskin of New York-based Macellum Advisors, sent a letter to the board of directors questioning their oversight of the company after several poor quarters of performance. Duskin suggested the company put itself up for sale.
Patrick Kennedy