I'm not organizing a canned food drive for the top executives at Sony quite yet, but recent events -- the earthquakes in Japan, the hacking of the PlayStation Network -- have hit Sony so hard that even the company's top men are feeling the effects. Sony chairman Howard Stringer's pay fell 15 percent last year, and executive deputy president Kazuo Hirai's compensation dropped from 110 million yen in the prior period to "only" 101 million yen (excluding stock options).
Stringer earned 345 million yen ($4.3 million USD) for the year ending March 31; in the same period last year, Stringer earned 408 million yen, according to Sony's filings with the Japanese government.
Paul Hodgson, a spokesman for GovernanceMetrics International, a New York-based governance consultant and rating service, told Bloomberg that he thinks Sony is sending a clear message with the pay drops. “This might be a reflection of Sony’s desire to say ‘we’re taking a hit for this ourselves, and feel the pain as well as our shareholders and customers,’” Hodgson said.
If you're a Sony customer, do you think Sony is truly "sharing your pain?" Is now a good time to jump on board Sony and buy up some cheap stock, on the idea that the company will come out of this relatively dark period a stronger, more competitive entity? Let us know in the comment section.
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suzi002
Well redundancy going in many industries so.. as sony
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suzi002
Well redundancy going in many industries so.. as sony
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Lament86
I guess any company in Japan is going through a tough period right now...
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ShdwFox
Sharing the pain? lolz, hardly. When your getting pay like that it's just a number at these people. It's a nice sentiment but I'm guessing it deep down, to them, it hardly matters.
CrackpipeSymptoms
would be a smart thing to do buying some stock. im sure like everybody else who passed economics class expects Sony's stock to go no where but up in 6-8 months. crap, i need to find out how much their stock is up for
calcite
most of the CEOs making millions nowadays come from humble backgrounds. They went to college/university like most of us and worked at entry level positions and worked their way up. yes a doctor doesn't make millions practicing medicine nor are they answerable to shareholders and responsible for thousands of employees. CEOs make tough business decisions and make profit for their respected company's and in return get bonuses. some of us may think 2 million is a lot but for them it may not be. who are we to say 2 million or 10 million is enough? for someone in a 1st world country $10/hour may not be much but for someone from a 3rd world country that's a lot. so you just can't look at things from one side. if you wanna play with millions like them, then go to college/university, study in commerce or economics, get your CA/CGA/CFA designation (which takes about 3 years and is very tough) and work your way up to CEO/CFO position. and that takes good 15-20 years of very hard work and constant proving your self to the company. Only then if your are lucky and talented enough to work for a well established power-house company will you make millions. By putting all that blood and sweat in your work you would definitely want big money to motivate you to go further and beyond. If anyone cheats the system, then either they get laid off or go to jail. the market takes care of it. but to think that people ask for pay to be limited is unrealistic. if you take the motivation factor away (which is money) then you wont get innovations, competition nor new products. socialism doesn't work and people should get that. the Russians tried did, the Indians tried it and so did the Chinese and it hadn't worked for any of them. only when they turned to market oriented economy did they increase their output and opportunity for their people. I have a question for those who think that these pay cuts are just symbolic and not enough. put your-self in their shoes. would you take a pay-cut if you were in their shoes? would you bring it down to few grands a year from millions? remember a good CEO is hard to replace but employees from a low level are dispensable and easy to replace. and in terms of innovations Sony is one of the best. from a humble beginning in a car garage this company has rightfully resin to greatness due to many innovative products from the walkman to the disk to PS1 to PS3 not to mention most broadcasters use sony equipment to deliver the contents that you enjoy at home. I for one appreciate them taking a pay-cut and glad sony is still around to give Nintendo and Microsoft and not to mention dozens of other companies a good competition to keep things going well. And please if you think Sony is somehow deceiving or ripping you off, then switch to another company or leave constructive criticism that a company can use to better their product-line. don't bellow out garbage unless you have something to back things up. it would be nice to read something well thought out than random outburst of paranoia and hate.
InnerRise
Awww. Now how much will their families inherit when these crooks and frauds die?
This is all a PR stunt anyway. Shows once again just how disconnected Sony still is.
PS1 must have been a fluke because Sony has done NOTHING right this generation.
scorpian876
Wow! Well Sony should have better business practices the way before in the past,a console drop would be a better strategy but it's cheap enough all ready.And Microsoft letting online gamer's play for free can draw more people away from Sony which isn't a good idea for Sony but Sony has free online gaming too.And this isn't good either,I don't want to see Microsoft to win the console wars ,but I don't want to start a fan boy flame war.I just know that Microsoft will start making people pay for red ringed broken X-Box 360's,oh I just see that happening.lol
catrachohn
by earning +4 mil i don't think they feel the pain we do but they r definitely hurting, and things need to be done so that company gets of this horrible time they are having. this might mean that next playstation will be sold to make a profit or at least not sold for huge losses which ultimately might be for the best or not (who knows?). wish the best for sony, we all know microsoft needs some good competition or they might get too greedy on us.
TheColdOne
This is what ALL big companies should do during hard times. How many jobs of the common workers can be saved if each big executive takes a 10-15% pay cut? Can they really not survive comfortably without that extra bit?
lucidity
You're right Bob, however Sony has already layed off thousands and closed studios.
lowkevmic
@bobthebaptist- You're right. But then again between the two of them, that's only a loss of 800 grand USD. In the grand scheme of things, that's covering Sony's operation cost for maybe a month. None of the employees salries will see a hike in pay, if anything they'll probably have to go without any pay raises or bonuses this year, just to cover the executive's barely noticable losses. In theory it's great when Top execs at companies cut their overall yearly income to help their company, but it's not like they should deserve a medal for it. They still go home as millionaires, except they'll just have to wait a few more months before they buy that yacht they always wanted.
lfrancis
Have we find out how much they are cutting on Kevin Butler's Salary?
bobthebaptist
@all the people saying it doesn't matter, it does.
This is what every company should be doing instead of firing employees. They decided to put down their salaries in order to help the company. Though, if they wanted to they could have easily fired a bunch of people and blamed it on poor "inser excuse".
crocodilius
NO, NOT KAZ!
YOU BASTARDS...YOU DID IT...YOU REALLY DID IT..
DinoHaxxSaur
Oh boo who. They may have lost wages from the previous year, but it;s still considerably higher then 95% of the world population makes. I could comfortably live on 10% of what these guys earn per year. These rich people will never get sympathy from me, when it comes to "losing" wages. These guys need to make 30,000 a year and see what life is really like.
DPsx72
DPsx72's comment is abusive and has been removed.
lucidity
I think you'll find Kaz's has a different job, if you can call it a job, honorary chairmen.
No doubt a response to all Sony's failures.
Symicide
I will and forever be loyal to Sony <3
CareyGrant
Well, your company gets hacked to the tune of 200+ million in damages; that money has to be made back, and share holders (the true masters of any publicly-traded company) want that nice fat return on their investment, by any means.
For a C-level executive, and one of Sony's top men, that pay sounds a bit low to me (if we aren't including any stock options or other profit sharing or bonuses in that sum, in which case I'd bet he makes much more, but that's the amount he pays taxes on).
4.3 million? Even your average professional athlete makes a lot more money than that a year, not counting endorsements. Where's your outrage there? Heck, I know local business owners who make that much or more, and I don't live in a major city.
And while that is a lot of money, you'd be downright disgusted to see what oil company, industry or finance execs make. One word: obscene.
For people working and operating at that level in society there is no such thing as making too much money.
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