About the register

Bonus Watch sets what an executive was paid against what it cost everyone else in the same period, in two columns, the way a ledger does it.

What gets recorded

An entry needs two things: a figure somebody has disclosed, and a cost that can be documented — job cuts, a share price collapse, a regulatory finding, a shareholder revolt, a rescue paid for out of someone else's pocket. A large number on its own is not enough. Plenty of people are paid a great deal and nothing goes wrong.

There are 153 entries here from 24 countries, US$11.95b between them at approximate exchange rates.

Where it starts

The first golden parachute is usually dated to 1961, when TWA's creditors were trying to prise the airline away from Howard Hughes. To get Charles C. Tillinghast Jr. to take the job they wrote him a contract that paid out if he lost it. He never lost it, and the parachute never opened. The oldest entry here is F. Ross Johnson's, twenty-eight years later, and it is already worth fifty-three million dollars.

The words arrived with the money. Golden handshake is credited to Frederick Ellis, city editor of the Daily Express, in the mid-1960s: paid for leaving. A golden parachute is the same thing agreed in advance, in case leaving becomes necessary. A golden hello pays for arriving and golden handcuffs for staying. All four are on the register — Brian Niccol's US$5m for turning up at Starbucks, handed over at his one-month anniversary, and Mark Thurston's £1.3m for staying at Anglian Water in the first year of the ban on water executive bonuses.

Where the figures come from

Company disclosures, mostly: annual reports, remuneration reports, proxy statements, exchange announcements, and in the United States the Form 990 that every tax-exempt organisation has to file. Otherwise, named reporting of them. Executive pay is published so that people can look at it. Every entry lists what it was taken from, and anything that cannot be traced back to a source stays off.

Target pay and realised pay are different numbers. Where a package is an award that may never fully vest, the entry says so and gives the realisable figure alongside. Reporting a target as money in the bank is the usual mistake in this subject.

Corrections

Quickly, and without argument. If something here is wrong, out of date, or missing the context that changes what it means, send it to hello@bonus.watch with a source. Every entry is version-controlled, so each change is dated and can be traced.

How it is paid for

It costs less to run for a year than the average entry on it earns in a minute. There is no advertising and nothing here is sponsored. Anyone who wants to chip in can do it here, and it buys nothing.

Reuse

Journalists, researchers and campaigners are welcome to the figures, with attribution and a link. The whole register is a CSV.