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In 2013 John Chen was appointed CEO of BlackBerry Limited (TSE:BB). First, this article will compare CEO compensation with compensation at similar sized companies. Then we'll look at a snap shot of the business growth. And finally we will reflect on how common stockholders have fared in the last few years, as a secondary measure of performance. The aim of all this is to consider the appropriateness of CEO pay levels.
See our latest analysis for BlackBerry
How Does John Chen's Compensation Compare With Similar Sized Companies?
At the time of writing our data says that BlackBerry Limited has a market cap of CA$5.8b, and is paying total annual CEO compensation of US$110m. (This number is for the twelve months until February 2019). That's a notable increase of 3536% on last year. While we always look at total compensation first, we note that the salary component is less, at US$1.0m. We looked at a group of companies with market capitalizations from US$2.0b to US$6.4b, and the median CEO total compensation was US$3.1m.
Thus we can conclude that John Chen receives more in total compensation than the median of a group of companies in the same market, and of similar size to BlackBerry Limited. However, this doesn't necessarily mean the pay is too high. We can get a better idea of how generous the pay is by looking at the performance of the underlying business.
The graphic below shows how CEO compensation at BlackBerry has changed from year to year.
Is BlackBerry Limited Growing?
BlackBerry Limited has increased its earnings per share (EPS) by an average of 69% a year, over the last three years (using a line of best fit). In the last year, its revenue is down -3.0%.
This shows that the company has improved itself over the last few years. Good news for shareholders. The lack of revenue growth isn't ideal, but it is the bottom line that counts most in business. You might want to check this free visual report on analyst forecasts for future earnings.
Has BlackBerry Limited Been A Good Investment?
BlackBerry Limited has generated a total shareholder return of 19% over three years, so most shareholders would be reasonably content. But they would probably prefer not to see CEO compensation far in excess of the median.
In Summary...
We examined the amount BlackBerry Limited pays its CEO, and compared it to the amount paid by similar sized companies. Our data suggests that it pays above the median CEO pay within that group.