Activision's Bobby Kotick and EA's Andrew Wilson are among the "most overpaid" CEOs in the US, according to As You Sow. The non-profit has been revealing, among other things, the pay gaps between employees and CEOs since 2015 and recently published its 2019 list featuring the pair.
As You Sow takes into account data like salary, what percentage of shareholders approved it and the disparity between the CEO's income and that of their employees to determine where on the list they get to sit.
Bobby Kotick of Activision, which recently celebrated record profits while laying off hundreds of employees, ranks highest of games industry CEOs according to the report. Kotick's pay is $28,698,375. That's 306 times more than his average employee. 92 percent of shareholders voted to approve this pay package. Together, this places him in the 45th spot.
EA's Andrew Wilson earns even more, netting $35,728,764, which is 371 times more than his average employee. 97 percent of EA's shareholders approved the pay package. He's ranked at 98.
The report notes that while shareholders have started to oppose the huge amounts of cash being earned by CEOs generally, their pay is still increasing. "Yet overall CEO pay continues to increase. According to Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) the average pay for a CEO in the S&P 500 grew from $11.5 million in 2013 to $13.6 million in 2017. An analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, which includes the cashing in of stock options, found that 'in 2017 the average CEO of the 350 largest firms in the U.S. received $18.9 million in compensation, a 17.6 percent increase over 2016.'"
