There is good news today for the Dallas luxury real estate market, and one reason why there has been a flurry of mega mansion home sales the last few weeks.
There are more rich people in Dallas. According to Longnecker & Associates, a Houston consulting firm asked to compile data for the Dallas Morning News, Dallas area top execs are getting fatter paychecks. This is because most CEOs and execs get moneyed-up from stock dividends. And stock prices for most of Dallas-Fort Worth companies soared last year, churning out hefty financial packages for our top execs.
The median total compensation for D-FW chief executives — base salaries, stock awards, stock options, cash bonuses and pension benefits — soared 20 percent last year, according to Longnecker & Associates, a Houston consulting firm that compiled compensation data for The Dallas Morning News. The median is the point at which half of the CEOs earned more and half earned less.
Median total compensation increased from $2.85 million in 2012 to $3.4 million last year. The largest slug of that came from stock awards, which increased 12 percent to $2.4 million.
Those median base salaries aren’t too shabby, either: in D-FW they rose from $691,801 in 2012 to $731,315 in 2013. That’s an increase of 5.7 percent. That also means that the base home a CEO earning $731,315 can qualify for is about $2.1 million, assuming great credit and a hefty down payment, which they could get from a nice stock dividend and end of year bonus. But that’s still less than what most chief executives in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index get outside of Dallas. However, experts expect those juicy CEO salaries to continue climbing here.
I had a recent conversation with a local developer about all the multi-million dollar homes going up in Dallas, many as speculative. We were concerned that the mega mansion market could be getting “frothy”. I guess I will park my concerns with my sunscreen, at least this week.
The most interesting thing about this article by Will Deener to me is that despite the shackles of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, executives are making more than ever. Dodd-Frank makes executive compensation more transparent, and shareholders get to vote on the executive’s pay package — that’s why you should pay attention to all those voting notices that come your way if you own stocks. Me, I always vote down the huge CEO pay package. I know it’s non-binding, but figure someone has to keep them in line. Why doesn’t corporate America invest more in the companies and employees than the CEOs? That’s my socialist moment for the day!
But get this: Longnecker & Associates says that shareholders throughout the country have voted no at 42 companies this year, compared with 48 the previous year. So lot of good that part of Dodd-Frank is doing. And:
No D-FW companies received “no” votes in 2013, according to Longnecker.
However, the article says “one surprising “no” vote came from shareholders in the popular restaurant company Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. The co-chief executive officers, Steve Ells and Monty Moran, both received total compensation in the $25 million range, but only 23 percent of the shareholders voted in favor of the package.” Did they not like the enchiladas or something?
In any case, the top earning CEO in DFW is Solera Holdings Inc’s Tony Aquila, with $29.9 million in total pay. Solera is based in Westlake, and provides software to estimate and track auto repairs, vehicle history and the “claims process for 165,000 customers in the auto repair and property insurance industries.” Talk about the gift that keeps on giving!
Where does Tony live? Not sure if this is him, but there is a home owned by an Anthony and Shelly Aquila in The Enclave, on Enclave Court, in Southlake. It’s about 8760 square feet and has five bedrooms, a pool, a four car garage IF, again, IF that is the Tony Aquil of Solera Holdings’ homestead. Nice house.
Second place went to Exxon chief Rex Tillerson’s for his total compensation of $28.1 million. He and his wife live on an 18 acre homestead near their 83 acre horse ranch in Bartonville, in Denton County. Looking at Denton County tax records, I found a home under Rex W and Renda Tillerson valued at only $1,257,925. Does this tell us that some of our Dallas billionaires are starting to live like Warren Buffett? Compare Tillerson’s abode to Harry Longwell, who owns a $7,025,000 home on Park Lane. Of course, I imagine the Tillersons own several other properties across the globe.
Third went to our family man with the compound on Walnut Hill Lane, Randall Stephenson of AT&T Inc. DCAD has his three property tracts valued at about $7.8 million total.
His $1.6 million salary was supplemented with a $5 million cash incentive award, $13.4 million in stock awards and $3.2 million in other compensation for a total package of $23.2 million.
As for the rest of the 10 highest-paid CEOs in Dallas Fort Worth, salary packages ranged from $22.7 million down to a paltry $13.2 million. Two CEOs from American Airlines Group Inc. were included in this group, including Tom Horton, at $19.3 million and Doug Parker, former CEO of US Airways at $17.7 million.
Thank you, people, for stimulating our real estate market and snapping up those luxury homes. I will try not to vote against any mega compensation packages in D/FW — let’s keep those mansions selling!
