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Should You Worry About Nucor Corporation's (NYSE:NUE) CEO Salary Level?

John Ferriola has been the CEO of Nucor Corporation (NYSE:NUE) since 2013. This report will, first, examine the CEO compensation levels in comparison to CEO compensation at other big companies. Next, we'll consider growth that the business demonstrates. And finally - as a second measure of performance - we will look at the returns shareholders have received over the last few years. This method should give us information to assess how appropriately the company pays the CEO.

Check out our latest analysis for Nucor

How Does John Ferriola's Compensation Compare With Similar Sized Companies?

Our data indicates that Nucor Corporation is worth US$16b, and total annual CEO compensation is US$16m. (This number is for the twelve months until December 2018). We think total compensation is more important but we note that the CEO salary is lower, at US$1.4m. When we examined a group of companies with market caps over US$8.0b, we found that their median CEO total compensation was US$11m. There aren't very many mega-cap companies, so we had to take a wide range to get a meaningful comparison figure.

As you can see, John Ferriola is paid more than the median CEO pay at large companies, in the same market. However, this does not necessarily mean Nucor Corporation is paying too much. We can get a better idea of how generous the pay is by looking at the performance of the underlying business.

You can see, below, how CEO compensation at Nucor has changed over time.

NYSE:NUE CEO Compensation, August 5th 2019
NYSE:NUE CEO Compensation, August 5th 2019

Is Nucor Corporation Growing?

Nucor Corporation has increased its earnings per share (EPS) by an average of 54% a year, over the last three years (using a line of best fit). Its revenue is up 12% over last year.

Overall this is a positive result for shareholders, showing that the company has improved in recent years. This sort of respectable year-on-year revenue growth is often seen at a healthy, growing business. You might want to check this free visual report on analyst forecasts for future earnings.

Has Nucor Corporation Been A Good Investment?

Nucor Corporation has generated a total shareholder return of 6.3% over three years, so most shareholders wouldn't be too disappointed. But they probably don't want to see the CEO paid more than is normal for companies around the same size.

In Summary...

We compared the total CEO remuneration paid by Nucor Corporation, and compared it to remuneration at a group of other large companies. As discussed above, we discovered that the company pays more than the median of that group.

However we must not forget that the EPS growth has been very strong over three years. We also note that, over the same time frame, shareholder returns haven't been bad. So, considering the EPS growth we do not wish to criticize the level of CEO compensation, though we'd recommend further research on management. So you may want to check if insiders are buying Nucor shares with their own money (free access).

Important note: Nucor may not be the best stock to buy. You might find something better in this list of interesting companies with high ROE and low debt.

We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.

If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.

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