As COVID-19 continues to have a major impact on the business endeavors of The Walt Disney Company, top executives did not receive cash bonuses for the most recent fiscal year. The result of this is that overall compensation was much lower for Disney’s top executives, where pay is based on performance over base salaries.
Bob Iger, who transitioned from his former role as CEO at Disney to Executive Chairman saw a 56% decline in pay from the previous year. His compensation package totaled $21 million. The year before he made $47.5 million and in 2018 he earned $65.6 million. Iger’s salary last year was $1.57 million, down from $3 million the year before. In 2019 Iger received a $21.8 million cash incentive which was set at zero this year. He also received $6.96 million in stock awards and $9.59 million in options in the most recent fiscal year.
Bob Chapek assumed the role of CEO in February saw his compensation package total up to $14.2 million, according to a proxy report submitted by Disney. Chapek’s salary was $1.81 million. He also received stock and options worth $6.13 million and $3.37 million, respectively.
There were other high-level executives that also went without bonuses. This includes general counsel Alan Braverman, chief financial officer Christine McCarthy, chief communications officer Zenia Mucha, and chief human resources officer Jayne Parker.
The pay decreases for Disney executives comes after the company posted a net loss of $2.8 billion for the 2020 fiscal year. This comes in stark contrast to the $10.4 billion the company profited the year before. It also comes after Disney has furloughed and laid of tens of thousands of employees, with a majority of these hits coming from its Disney Parks, Experiences and Products division.
All of these updates to compensation come after Iger went without a salary in March as Disney was being hit financially by the effects of the pandemic. Chapek took a 50% pay cut. Other executives took a pay cut of up to 30%. Moving forward Disney has changed its compensation also so that earnings per share will no longer be used as a metric for calculating bonuses. Revenue growth will be counted as a part of the equation moving forward.
While the year was a difficult one for The Walt Disney Company. There was a bright spot for the company with its streaming service Disney+. As of December, the streaming service had 86.8 million subscribers. This makes it the dominant competitor to Netflix
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