Alcon CEO David Endicott [Photo courtesy of Alcon]
Shareholders will cast their votes at the Geneva, Switzerland-based eye care product developer and manufacturer’s annual meeting on May 6. While investor votes on executive compensation are only advisory for publicly traded companies in the U.S., Swiss law requires shareholder approval for a maximum aggregate amount of compensation for its executive committee.
Alcon’s request is for the same amount as investors approved at last year’s annual meeting. But at that meeting, a non-binding, consultative vote by shareholders on the company’s compensation practices only had support from 49% of votes cast.
“We were disappointed with this result given our strong performance in 2023 and our robust pay programs that are tied to this performance,” the board said in materials to investors ahead of this year’s vote. “Accordingly, we have redoubled our efforts to engage with and gather feedback from our shareholders, reaching out to our top 40 investors holding approximately 60% of outstanding shares to address any concerns they have on our executive compensation programs.”
“During shareholder engagement, we highlighted our rationale for the composition of our peer group, the judicious approach we take to set CEO’s target compensation, our pay-for-performance alignment and our continuing effort to make our executive compensation disclosure transparent and clear,” the board continued. “We received broad support from our shareholders on the composition of our peer group, pay-for-performance alignment and how we plan to show this alignment in our disclosure, as well as our prudence in not chasing peer group median movement in a given year.”
Some shareholders asked for more information about incentive programs, said the board, which has “added retrospective actual achievements for our financial metrics in incentive programs and enhanced transparency for our non financial metrics in the long-term incentive plan.”
Recruiting and retaining top talent — both at the executive and engineering level — is crucial in the medtech industry, but employee compensation is kept secret in most cases. Medical Design & Outsourcing tracks and analyzes these pay figures when disclosed by major device developers and manufacturers.
Alcon is the world’s 16th-largest medical device company, according to our 2024 Medtech Big 100 ranking by revenue. That ranking was based on Alcon’s 2023 recenue of $9.4 billion. The company reported $9.8 billion for fiscal 2024 (ended Dec. 31).
Alcon executive pay
Alcon paid CEO David Endicott $13.2 million in 2024, including a $1.3 million salary, $2.2 million for short-term incentives, $8.1 million long-term (2024-2026) incentives and $184,504 worth of pension and insurance contributions.
Endicott also received nearly $1.4 million for other compensation including a transportation expenses and/or global mobility benefits.
Endicott’s total compensation decreased 7% from $13.2 million the year before.
Alcon did not disclose pay for other executives, but said the other six members of the Executive Committee of Alcon (ECA) received a combined total of $29 million, up 4% from the year before.
That included $4.8 million for salaries, $17.7 million for long-term incentives, $8.1 million for short-term incentives, $1.1 million for pension and insurance contributions and $9.2 million for other benefits.
Those six ECA members (excluding Endicott) are:
- Alcon SVP, Corporate Strategy, Business Development and Licensing (BD&L) and Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) Laurent Attias
- Alcon SVP and Chief Operating Officer Ian Bell
- Alcon SVP and Americas President Sergio Duplan
- Alcon SVP and Chief Human Resources and Corporate Communications Officer Kim Martin
- Alcon SVP and International President Rajkumar Narayanan
- Alcon SVP and CFO Tim Stonesifer
The board said it intends to increase salaries for Endicott and the ECA by 3% but “does not intend to make any adjustments to the CEO’s target compensation in 2025.”
“We benchmark ECA compensation against a consistent blended peer group of International and U.S. headquartered companies (42% International and 58% U.S.) with similar characteristics of size, industry, business mix and global footprint,” Alcon Board Chair F. Michael Ball and Compensation Committee Chair Karen May wrote in the filing. “Although Alcon is headquartered in Switzerland, a significant portion of our sales, management team and associate population are in the U.S. The U.S. is the largest pool for both medical device and ophthalmology talent, and it is therefore critical that Alcon is able to attract and retain key talent from the U.S.”
More medtech compensation analysis for CEOs, top-paid executives and median workers
- GE HealthCare executive compensation plunges after one-time spinoff awards
- Zimmer Biomet discloses pay packages for top executives and its median employee
- Edwards Lifesciences reports $14.6M in pay for CEO’s first full year; median employee pay jumps
- BD reports pay increases for some execs, decreases for others
- Baxter CEO pay surged before his departure — along with the median employee’s wage
- Stryker increases pay for top execs, reports slightly lower wage for median employee
- Solventum paid CEO Bryan Hanson $40M in spinoff’s first year
- Intuitive Surgical discloses pay for execs and median workers while urging votes against shareholder proposals
- Boston Scientific CEO pay breaks $20 million for the first time since Ray Elliott
- Abbott’s device leader got a big pay bump as sales surged
- Cardinal Health CEO pay climbs to $25M; Median worker pay dropped
- Johnson & Johnson discloses executive pay and new security measures
- Medtronic CEO pay jumps 30%, employment and median worker pay drop
- No bonuses for Penumbra execs despite growing sales 25% to $1B
- Integer discloses executive pay, including separation payments for ex-EVPs
- Outset Medical investors target executive pay after recalls and warning letter
- BD limits executive severance after ‘golden parachute’ shareholder proposal overcomes board opposition
