AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson was paid $28.7 million for guiding the telecom giant through a battle-scarred 2017.
The company's 244,248 workers in the U.S. and other countries took home a median salary of $78,437 _ meaning Stephenson earned 366 times as much as the Dallas-based firm's employees, according to an annual proxy statement filed Monday.
It's the first time that publicly-traded U.S. companies have had to give a glimpse into the pay difference between top executives and their workers. The pay ratio requirement is one of the transparency measures contained in the post-financial crisis Dodd-Frank Act in 2010.
The disclosure is intended to help shareholders understand how executive compensation packages are determined in boardrooms across the country. Previously, public companies only had to report the pay awarded to its five highest-ranking executives.
In AT&T's case for 2017, all but one of its top executives received compensation totaling eight figures, including:
Stephenson: $28.7 million
CFO John Stephens: $13.8 million
AT&T Communications LLC CEO John Donovan: $15.1 million
Senior executive vice president John Stankey: $10 million
General counsel David McAtee: $6.2 million
Stephenson was the region's highest paid CEO in 2016, topping perennial leader and former Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson. Stephenson was paid $28.4 million that year.
Several other Dallas-Fort Worth companies also have reported CEO pay ratios ranging from 152 times higher to 12 times greater than employees' median wages. Those firms include:
Fluor Corp.: 152 to 1. CEO David Seaton was paid $10.2 million. The median pay for employees was $67,580.
Texas Capital Bancshares Inc.: 40 to 1. CEO Keith Cargill received $3.6 million, while the median for employees was $91,315.
Westwood Holdings Group Inc.: 23 to 1. CEO Brian Casey was paid $4.2 million. Employees received a median of $181,913.
Energy Transfer Equity: 12 to 1. President John W. McReynolds received $1.3 million, while the median for workers was $115,226. The company did not compare the pay of its chairman, Kelcy Warren, to workers.
Additional proxy statements will be filed with the SEC in coming weeks. The Wall Street Journal reported today on other companies nationwide, including an oil refiner that paid its CEO 935 times as much as its median worker.
