Yahoo Finance Should You Worry About Synaptics Incorporated’s (NASDAQ:SYNA) CEO Pay?
Rick Bergman has been the CEO of Synaptics Incorporated (NASDAQ:SYNA) since 2011. 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. This process should give us an idea about how appropriately the CEO is paid.
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How Does Rick Bergman’s Compensation Compare With Similar Sized Companies?
At the time of writing our data says that Synaptics Incorporated has a market cap of US$1.4b, and is paying total annual CEO compensation of US$7.0m. (This figure is for the year to 2018). We think total compensation is more important but we note that the CEO salary is lower, at US$700k. We examined companies with market caps from US$1.0b to US$3.2b, and discovered that the median CEO compensation of that group was US$3.5m.
Thus we can conclude that Rick Bergman receives more in total compensation than the median of a group of companies in the same market, and of similar size to Synaptics Incorporated. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean the pay is too high. We can better assess whether the pay is overly generous by looking into the underlying business performance.
The graphic below shows how CEO compensation at Synaptics has changed from year to year.
Is Synaptics Incorporated Growing?
Synaptics Incorporated has reduced its earnings per share by an average of 109% a year, over the last three years. Its revenue is down -6.8% over last year.
Unfortunately, earnings per share have trended lower over the last three years. This is compounded by the fact revenue is actually down on last year. It’s hard to argue the company is firing on all cylinders, so shareholders might be averse to high CEO remuneration.
You might want to check this free visual report on analyst forecasts for future earnings.
Has Synaptics Incorporated Been A Good Investment?
Given the total loss of 42% over three years, many shareholders in Synaptics Incorporated are probably rather dissatisfied, to say the least. This suggests it would be unwise for the company to pay the CEO too generously.
In Summary…
We compared total CEO remuneration at Synaptics Incorporated with the amount paid at companies with a similar market capitalization. We found that it pays well over the median amount paid in the benchmark group.
Neither earnings per share nor revenue have been growing sufficiently fast to impress us, over the last three years.
Arguably worse, investors are without a positive return for the last three years. This analysis suggests to us that the CEO is paid too generously! Shareholders may want to check for free if Synaptics insiders are buying or selling shares.
Or you might prefer this data-rich interactive visualization of historic revenue and earnings.
To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.
The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
