Chairman, CEO
Total compensation: $16,503,542 for the year ended Dec. 31, 2018
Salary: $1,025,000
Nonequity incentive pay: $6,386,000
Other compensation: $619,971
Exercised stock options: $0
Value realized on vesting shares: $8,472,571
New stock options: 119,834
Median employee pay: $94,570
CEO pay ratio: 272:1
Total 2018 shareholder return: -36.8 percent
Ameriprise shareholders last year voted down the annual nonbinding proposal on executive compensation after years of support greater than 90 percent. In 2017, shareholders had given 81 percent support to the proposal. Last year, only 25.3 percent of shareholders supported the plan. In response to the 2018 vote, Ameriprise increased its shareholder engagement around pay issues and then made substantial changes that took effect for 2018 and beyond.
Among those changes were efforts to make the executive-compensation plan more transparent by offering increased disclosure on the targets and metrics used to determine short-term and long-term compensation rewards. As a result, Cracchiolo's annual cash-incentive award went down 43 percent from the $11.2 million he earned in 2017 to $6.4 million in 2018, even as the company exceeded revenue, earnings and return on equity targets for 2018. In the proxy, the company said Cracchiolo's total direct compensation for 2018, including salary, short-term cash incentives and long-term equity awards was down 23 percent to $22.3 million.
The Star Tribune has long counted total compensation that includes the realized value of stock options and stock awards during the year. In 2018, he elected not to exercise options and as a result his total realized pay for 2018 was $16.5 million, down from the 2017 total of $60.6 million.
Patrick Kennedy
