Here’s What We Think About The GEO Group Inc’s (NYSE:GEO) CEO Pay
George Zoley became the CEO of The GEO Group Inc (NYSE:GEO) in 1994. This report will, first, examine the CEO compensation levels in comparison to CEO compensation at companies of similar size. Then we’ll look at a snap shot of the business growth. Third, we’ll reflect on the total return to shareholders over three years, as a second measure of business performance. This process should give us an idea about how appropriately the CEO is paid.
View our latest analysis for GEO Group
How Does George Zoley’s Compensation Compare With Similar Sized Companies?
At the time of writing our data says that The GEO Group Inc has a market cap of US$2.7b, and is paying total annual CEO compensation of US$9.7m. We note that’s an increase of 87% above last year. When we examined a selection of companies with market caps ranging from US$2.0b to US$6.4b, we found the median CEO compensation was US$5.1m.
Thus we can conclude that George Zoley receives more in total compensation than the median of a group of companies in the same market, and of similar size to The GEO Group Inc. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean the pay is too high. A closer look at the performance of the underlying business will give us a better idea about whether the pay is particularly generous.
The graphic below shows how CEO compensation at GEO Group has changed from year to year.
Is The GEO Group Inc Growing?
The GEO Group Inc saw earnings per share stay pretty flat over the last three years, albeit with a slight decrease. It achieved revenue growth of 1.8% over the last year.
In the last three years the company has failed to grow earnings per s. The fairly low revenue growth fails to impress given that the earnings per share is down. So given this relatively weak performance, shareholders would probably not want to see high compensation for the CEO.
You might want to check this free visual report on analyst forecasts for future earnings.
Has The GEO Group Inc Been A Good Investment?
I think that the total shareholder return of 42%, over three years, would leave most The GEO Group Inc shareholders smiling. So they may not be at all concerned if the CEO is paid more than is normal for companies around the same size.
In Summary…
We compared the total CEO remuneration paid by The GEO Group Inc, and compared it to remuneration at a group of similar sized companies. Our data suggests that it pays above the median CEO pay within that group.
We think many shareholders would be underwhelmed with the business growth over the last three years.
On the other hand, returns have been good, so the company is doing something right. So on this analysis we’d stop short of criticizing the level of CEO compensation.
Of course, the past can be informative so you might be interested in considering this analytical visualization showing the company history of earnings and revenue.
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.
