We Should Be Cleaning Our Own House

In America's executive suites, we should be cleaning our own house. Only a minority of us are corrupt, but we all know that dicey or illegal shenanigans are fairly commonplace: who's kidding who?

However, we won't clean our own house, because historically, we never do. These things go in cycles. What's going to happen? New political movements and regulations will step in to do the job, roughly, often clumsily, with a good deal of overreaction. And it will be our own fault.

From the New York Times:

July 17, 2006
Study Finds Backdating of Options Widespread
By STEPHANIE SAUL

More than 2,000 companies appear to have used backdated stock options to sweeten their top executives’ pay packages, according to a new study that suggests the practice is far more widespread than previously disclosed.

The new statistical analysis, which comes amid a broadening federal inquiry of the practice of timing options to the stock market, estimates that 29.2 percent of companies have used backdated options and 13.6 percent of options granted to top executives from 1996 to 2005 were backdated or otherwise manipulated.

So far, more than 60 companies have disclosed that they are the targets of government investigations, are the subject of investor lawsuits or have conducted internal audits involving the practice, in which options are backdated to days when the company’s shares trade at low prices. They include Apple Computer, CNet and Juniper Networks.

Last week, the United States attorney in San Francisco announced a task force to investigate the backdating of options, which appears to have been particularly popular in Silicon Valley during the 1990’s dot-com boom. The study found that the abuse was more prevalent in high-technology firms, where an estimated 32 percent of unscheduled grants were backdated; at other firms, an estimated 20 percent were backdated.

An author of the study said the analysis suggested that the disclosures so far about backdated stock options may be just the tip of the iceberg.

“It is pretty scary, and it’s quite surprising to see,” said Erik Lie, an associate professor of finance at the Tippie College of Business at the University of Iowa.

Professor Lie said the findings were so surprising that he asked several colleagues to check his numbers. Together, they concluded that the numbers probably erred on the low side.

The study by Professor Lie and Randall A. Heron, of the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, was posted Saturday to a University of Iowa Web site. Using information from the Thomson Financial Insider Filing database of insider transactions reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the two men examined 39,888 stock option grants to top executives at 7,774 companies dated from Jan. 1, 1996 to Dec. 1, 2005.

The findings were based on an analysis of whether share values increased or declined after option grant dates. “Half should be negative and half should be positive,” said Professor Lie. “That’s the underlying logic.”

But the analysis revealed that the distribution was shifted upward.

“This is not random chance. It’s something that’s manipulated, clearly,” said Professor Lie.

Of the companies examined, 29.2 percent, or 2,270, had at some point during the period manipulated stock option grants, the study estimated.