Jefferies Financial

Annual Meeting: March 29, 2022

Jeffries Financial once again paid two executives at a level higher than what peer companies paid their CEOs in 2021. Both CEO Richard Handler and President Brian Friedman have reported compensation of over $28.8 million. This represents an increase of 53% for Handler.

Shareholders have expressed concerns with the large pay packages in multiple years – with opposition levels of 44.7 percent in 2021, 30.8 percent in 2020 and 48.4 percent in 2018. Despite having a heading in the proxy statement that says “We heard you,” the company seems tone deaf. They have made changes around the edges, but not addressed the fact that Jefferies has not just a CEO but a President who are both highly overpaid.

Furthermore, in December, the board granted both the CEO and the President a “special long-term, five-year retention grant that we termed the Leadership Continuity Grant and that had a grant date value of $25 million.” Because this action did not occur in the 2021 fiscal year that figure is not reported in the summary compensation table. One wonders if that is one of the reasons for the timing of the grant. This year the company may tell investors, “That isn’t part of the current pay package, so it shouldn’t figure in your analysis” and next year they can say, “But this happened more than a year ago, you should vote on current actions.” Personally, I think it is an action egregious enough to inspire votes against pay in both years.

Jefferies Financial did not appear on our Overpaid CEOs list this year because the company was removed from the S&P 500 in 2019 when it spun off Spectrum Brands Holdings.