What do you do when your company is in the midst of a strategic redevelopment plan and you’re looking over your shoulder at an investor who seems to be swooping up stock?
If you’re Michael Feuer, CEO and chairman of OfficeMax Inc., you keep your focus and take no bonus.
According to a proxy filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Feuer received no bonus in the fiscal year ending Jan. 26. It’s the same approach he took the previous year, when OfficeMax stock hit a low point and analysts began to question his management plan.
Since then, Feuer has developed and begun to integrate a strategic plan that includes re-evaluating the office supply retailer’s growth initiative and lowering fixed costs. As the company’s stock price rose, its largest single stockholder, Orient Star LLC, stopped its aggressive acquisition strategy (it had closed in on the magic 15 percent) and began selling off OfficeMax stock for large profits.
Unlike many of his CEO peers, Feuer did not reward himself for the first-year plan efforts. He received a salary of $950,000 in the year ended Jan. 26, down 1.9 percent from his salary of $968,269 the previous year.
Additionally, OfficeMax granted him 295,000 stock options, compared with 400,000 the prior year. Assuming the company’s common stock appreciates 5 percent each year for the next nine years, the value of the options is $578,200. The options have an exercise price of $3.12 a share and expire April 4, 2011.
The executive received no restricted stock award in the year ended Jan. 26, compared with a restricted stock award of $14,871 the previous year.