Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick is taking some flack from his stockholders due to making way more money than he really should.
Bobby Kotick is widely seen as one of the most overpaid CEOs in America. He’s certainly one of the most overpaid CEO’s in gaming, as Gamespot notes that he made over $30 million last year, and made even more money the year before.
Now one of Activision Blizzard’s investors is starting to raise the alarm. CtW Investment Group recently told shareholders to vote against a “Say-On-Pay” proposal that would allow Activision to pay its management what it wants. And since that generally means Bobby and his friends, you can expect them to pay even more than he’s already getting.
“Despite repeated low approval votes from shareholders, Activision Blizzard maintains multiple, overlapping opportunities for its CEO to earn outsize equity awards, even when performance-related vesting thresholds have not been met,” says a filing with the SEC from CtW. “Despite failing to disclose pertinent information on performance targets for its Short Term Incentive Plan, Activision Blizzard’s proxy statement reveals significant human capital management challenges.”
“Human capital management challenges” is basically corporate-speak for how bad it looks for a company to be making record profits and pay ludicrous sums to its CEO when it simultaneously fired 800 people last year. People aren’t going to want to work for a company that treats its employees so unfairly, and it will likely start to negatively affect their bottom line.
Source: Gamespot, SEC
