Scott Wine Polaris Industries Inc.
Chairman, CEO
Total compensation: $2,930,402 for the year ended Dec. 31
Salary: $985,000
Nonequity incentive pay: $1,856,558
Other compensation: $88,844
Exercised stock options: $0
Value realized on vesting shares: $0
New stock options: 245,218
CEO pay ratio: 199:1
Median employee pay: $44,328
Total 2017 shareholder return: 54.2 percent
Note: Wine took home $2.7 million less in 2017; he made $5.6 million in 2016. Sales at the maker of ATVs, motorcycles and snowmobiles rose 20.2 percent to $5.4 billion, but the company's net income decreased 19.2 percent to $172.5 million, and net income per diluted share sank 17.1 percent to $2.69 per share.
In the previous two years, Wine did not earn annual cash incentive bonuses but did so this year. The bonus was based on 75 percent of adjusted earnings per share and 25 percent on inventory levels. In 2017, the target for adjusted EPS was $4.50 per share
Despite a decline in net income, the adjusted EPS rose to $5.09 as compared to adjusted EPS of $3.48 in 2016. The company made adjustments to earnings to reflect the wind down of its Victory motorcycle business as it goes all in on its Indian brand and other adjustments for acquisition and integrations costs and the impacts of U.S. tax reform.
Shareholders gave a relatively low approval of the company's executive compensation program last year, 81.1 percent of shares in favor, which helped to kick off a shareholder outreach program to explain more fully corporate governance and executive compensation.
In 2016 the company was hit hard by product recalls, but Wine took home more without an annual incentive bonus because he realized about $4.5 million from previously issued long-term equity awards, including $3.4 million from stock option exercises that year. In 2017, he realized nothing from long-term equity awards.
The CEO pay ratio is calculated based on Wine's total in the summary compensation table, $8.8 million, which includes grant date value of long-term equity awards.
Patrick Kennedy
