That aphorism is quite true when it comes to big time corporate CEOs. So demonstrates a paper, Lucky Grants, by Lucian Belchuk and others at Harvard Law.
They studied stock option grants in the period 1996 - 2005. They looked at 19,036 grants made by 6,000 companies. 12% of these companies awarded grants at prices that were very likely based on backdating. That's a pretty high number. I don't think 12% of my friends and associates are crooks. Are yours?
Not only were these people thieves. They were greedy thieves. Their compensation was already greater than their peers. On average, they pocketed between $1,300,000 and $1,700,000 above their regular compensation.
But they couldn't have done it unless their board let them. This happened most often when the board was not independent or the CEO had been in power a long time.
And don't think that thieves exist only in the new economy companies. A majority of these grants were made by old economy companies.
This report is really a sad commentary on the state of America's business leaders.
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