At its annual shareholders meeting on June 27, USEC plans to have shareholders vote on a variety of issues, including recent increases in executive compensation and a move to keep the company’s stock exchange listing, the company stated in a financial filing Monday. Shareholders will hold an “advisory vote” on recent increases in executive pay, but will also vote on a proposal from two shareholders unhappy with the compensation package given recent big losses by the company. USEC reported that its CEO had a total compensation of about $5.3 million in 2012, according to financial filings. “We are very concerned with the total compensation package of our top executives and the lack of stockholder input to the process,” states the proposal from William and Wynona Jebb, who own 3,945 shares of the stock. They propose limiting top executive compensation to either 20 times the average pay of non exempted employees or ten times the average pay of exempted employees, whichever is less.
USEC’s board of directors is opposed to the idea. “The proposal would severely limit the Company’s ability to establish appropriate performance-based compensation for executives and would limit the Company’s ability to remain competitive in the market for executive talent,” USEC’s filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission states. “If this proposal were adopted, the Company could risk losing many of its key executive officers who are integral to the Company’s business operations and would be at a severe disadvantage to other companies in efforts to recruit new talent to the Company.”
Shareholders will also vote on whether to approve a move that could maintain USEC being listed on the New York Stock Exchange. In May 2012 the company received a notice from the stock exchange stating that it could be dropped if it could not bring its average share price over $1. While USEC’s stock currently sits at about $0.38, it has proposed a reverse stock split that would decrease the number of shares but increase share price, within a ratio of 1-for-10 to 1-for-30. USEC believes that a delisting would “have significant adverse consequences,” including a drop in stock price, according to the filing.