AT&T Paid $67,743,037 to Former CEO This Year but You Won’t Find that in Summary Compensation Table

Annual Meeting:

5/19/2022

John Stankey, AT&T CEO, received total compensation of $24,820,879, representing an 18 percent increase from the prior year. It includes a larger than average salary and a cash bonus that more than doubled from the prior year.

Also notable is the pay given to ex-CEO Randall Stephenson who left that position on January 19, 2021 but still had compensation of $16,345,499. That sum includes the post-employment consulting agreement of $1,000,000 and a required statement of estimated value for the fact that “the Committee lifted the automatic proration on Mr. Stephenson’s 2019 and 2020 Performance Share awards.” The company notes that, “While the grant date value of these PSAs was previously reported in the summary compensation table for FY19 and FY20, the value of such awards at the time the proration was lifted ($12,003,886) is required to be disclosed in this year’s proxy statement.”

The largest number regarding compensation though is not in the summary compensation table on pension benefits. This chart appears in every proxy and there are two columns. One shows “present value of accumulated benefit” and one shows “payments during last fiscal year.” Typically, executives leave companies before there are any payments, but because Stephenson remains a consultant we know exactly how much AT&T paid him from his various retirement vehicles last year: an astonishing $67,743,037.

At the end of 2022, the company will finally freeze the SERP (Supplemental Employee Retirement Benefit) and many of the more generous aspects are not available to officers appointed after 2008. Stankey has a total retirement package worth over $36 million.

This is one of many excesses in pay at AT&T. Last year 51.1 percent of shareholders voted against the executive compensation package at AT&T.

The company made several small changes, for example adding EPS growth as a metric to the FY22 PSAs, weighted equally with ROIC, which the company said it took, “to increase NEO pay alignment with shareholders' interests while maintaining a focus on capital allocation.” None addressed the larger issues. 

AT&T is one of only a few companies that have been on As You Sow’s Overpaid CEO list for eight years.