Starbucks global and China stores 2020 Starbucks shareholders reject senior compensation proposals!

Starbucks shareholders reportedly rejected a proposal for CEO CEO's compensation plan on Wednesday.

However, the Wall Street Journal believes that because the result of the vote is not binding, it may not affect senior compensation, but the law allows investors to vote on compensation proposals.

It is understood that Starbucks executives' compensation proposals include Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson's bonus of $1.86 million in fiscal 2020; Starbucks' board agreed in 2019 that if Kevin Johnson let the share price rise to the target price, and remain in office until fiscal year 2022, there will be a retention salary of $50 million over three years.

But Starbucks shareholders vetoed the management compensation proposal.

According to ISS Corporate Solutions, shareholders of only 10 S & P 500 companies rejected the annual compensation resolution last year, including an one-time bonus of $1.86 million to CEO Kevin Johnson, the Wall Street Journal reported.

ISS Corporate Solutions's institutional shareholder services and Glass Lewis recommended that shareholders reject performance incentives between October 2019 and September 2022, both of which advised investors to oppose compensation proposals because Starbucks did not fully explain the reasons for paying long-term compensation in cash and raised doubts about the frequency of one-time bonuses; ISS noted that Starbucks' interpretation of performance bonuses failed to rationalize bonuses of up to $50 million.

Since Kevin Johnson became CEO in 2017, he has helped Starbucks grow its market capitalization by more than $39 billion and deliver a brighter report card than its arch-rivals, Starbucks said.

In fact, as early as after Johnson became CEO, he put forward his own plan for the Chinese market: there will be 6000 stores in China by 2022, although Starbucks offline stores have been badly hit by the epidemic in 2020, but Starbucks has not given up on its own store opening plans.

As of December 27, 2020, the total number of Starbucks stores was 32938, of which Starbucks had 15340 stores in the United States and 4863 in China. In September 2019, Starbucks had only 15834 stores worldwide, of which, Starbucks has only 4123 stores in China, which is not difficult to calculate, although it is only one year from 2019 to the end of 2020. But Starbucks has opened more than 700 stores in the Chinese market in a short year.

Starbucks also said in the second quarter of this year that it aims to open 6000 stores in China in 230cities by the end of fiscal year 2022, and expects to have about 55000 stores worldwide by fiscal year 2030.

It is still a short distance from the 2022 goal, and whether it can be achieved depends on the speed at which Starbucks opens its stores.

It is worth mentioning that in December 2019, the Starbucks board of directors set a "special reward" for COE. If Starbucks' stock returns exceed at least 80% of the S & P 500 companies in the three fiscal years ending September 30, 2022, and outperform their peers in the next three years, Johnson will receive a special bonus of up to $50 million (about RMB 350 million). But if CEO Kevin Johnson (Kevin Johnson) fails to achieve that goal, the bonus will be cancelled.

Starbucks' board has previously explained why it has set up this incentive system: it is mainly designed to better retain leadership and reflect the board's commitment to building an organization with long-term leadership continuity.

At the time, the board made a similar offer for chief operating officer Rosalind Brewer, with a bonus of $10 million.

But Rosalind Blu, the chief operating officer, left the Starbucks coffee chain in February and gave up his cash reward when he became chief executive of the Walgreenbots alliance, according to the financial community website.

In response to Starbucks shareholders' rejection of senior compensation proposals, Starbucks said in a document asking shareholders to approve the resolution: the final payment of Starbucks' cash incentives will not be announced until fiscal year 2022.

* Image source: Internet