EA shareholders say no to massive proposed raises for executives

Enlarge / Some of the executives in this building may be getting less money than they expected this year, thanks to a shareholder vote. (credit: Eliot Lash)

A significant majority of Electronic Arts shareholders voted against the company's executive compensation plans late last week. The vote follows a pressure campaign from activist investor groups against what they see as excessive bonuses for executives at the company.

So-called "say-on-pay" votes rarely fail when put before shareholders of major publicly held companies; a recent Harvard Business School study showed well below 3 percent of such votes failing in the last decade or so. And while the results of the vote aren't binding on the company's board of directors, they would have to overrule a full 68 percent of the company's voting shares that rejected the pay plan.

The rejected payment plan included a proposed $21.37 million in total compensation for CEO Andrew Wilson in the 2020 fiscal year, up from $18.3 million in 2019. Other executives were set to see much larger bumps, including CFO Blake Jorgensen ($9.41 million in 2019 to $19.5 million in 2020) and Chief Studios Officer Laura Miele ($6.95 million to $16.1 million), and CTO Kenneth Moss ($6.95 million to $14.2 million).

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