Information in unexpected bonus cuts: Firm performance and CEO firings

An extensive literature finds that CEO compensation, especially bonus pay, exhibits downward rigidity. This is despite corporate boards usually retaining the discretion to deviate from their stated bonus formulae. We conjecture that the infrequent occasions in which there is an unexpected bonus cut, the board likely possesses unfavorable private information about the firm's long-term prospects and the CEO's ability. We hypothesize, therefore, that unexpected bonus cuts will be predictive of the company's future operating performance as well as forced CEO turnovers. We first validate our private information premise by showing that stock market reactions to CEO firings or earnings announcements are muted for firms experiencing unexpected bonus cuts but not for those without cuts. Consistent with these predictions, we find that unexpected bonus cuts are robust predictors of subsequent underperformance (ROE) and lower firm valuation (Tobin's Q) as well as CEO firings. Further, we examine the impact of Regulation S-K (2006) and show that predictive power becomes stronger post Reg. S-K, along with the disappearance of downward rigidity. This suggests that compensation transparency makes it harder for boards to deviate from stated bonus formulae and, if they do, the deviations are more informative.