"Rather Than Bearing a Nuisance"... US CEOs Sell Stocks and Resign One After Another

Trump's Second Term Launch... Challenges in Managing the 'Global Supply Chain'
Impact of US Stock Market Boom... Cases of Movement in Unlisted Companies

Due to this year's stock market boom and concerns about the business environment next year, the number of CEOs of U.S. publicly traded companies who retired this year reached an all-time high.

The British daily Financial Times (FT) reported on the 25th, citing data from consulting firm Challenger Gray, that 327 CEOs of U.S. publicly traded companies retired from January to November this year. This already surpasses the previous annual record of 312 set in 2019.

Among major large company CEOs, Dave Calhoun (Boeing), Pat Gelsinger (Intel), and John Donahoe (Nike) stepped down amid significant turmoil caused by stock price declines. Additionally, according to consulting firm Russell Reynolds, among the CEOs who retired in the third quarter this year, eight did not complete three years in office. This is the highest number of early retirements since 2019.

There is also speculation that some CEOs in certain sectors chose to retire out of fear of the challenges coming next year. This is because U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has announced plans to significantly raise tariffs, threatening free trade. From the perspective of CEOs managing global supply chains, it is better to retire than to take on such headaches.

Some publicly traded company CEOs move to executive positions at private companies. Private companies are not subject to as stringent regulations as publicly traded companies and tend to offer more generous equity-based compensation. In fact, large private equity firms such as Carlyle and KKR hire former publicly traded company CEOs as advisors and pay them substantial salaries.

According to data from Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), a proxy advisory firm cited by FT, the median compensation for CEOs of S&P 500 companies this year was $15.6 million (2.7 billion KRW), an all-time high. This amount is $1 million (150 million KRW) more than last year. Most of the compensation was received in company stock rather than cash, likely due to the strong U.S. stock market this year.

Not only CEOs but also Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) have seen an increase in retirements. According to a December report by DataRails, the average tenure of CFOs at large U.S. publicly traded companies this year was just over three years, shorter than 3.5 years in 2022. Among U.S. publicly traded large companies, 152 replaced their CFOs three times between 2018 and 2023, including Expedia and Under Armour.