Teamsters claim win against XPO Logistics exec compensation package; company disputes union’s data

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters is claiming a victory in their effort to convince XPO Logistics investors to reject an executive compensation package, while the company stressed the union is misrepresenting its data.

In a press statement, the union said the investors attending yesterday’s shareholders meeting sided with them in defeating the executive compensation packages. The union claimed that XPO CEO Bradley Jacobs received an incentive award of up to $80 million and the company received more than $141 million from the British government in pandemic relief while XPO”™s British workers were furloughed at only 80% of their wages.

“For years, XPO has lavished CEO Bradley Jacobs with excessive pay packages and granted him ad hoc awards that are outsized for a company of this size, but today investors had enough,” said Ken Hall, the union”™s general secretary-treasurer, adding that the Greenwich-headquartered company “has to do more than tinker around the edges with pay metrics; it needs to cut CEO Jacobs”™ pay down to size, especially as he will be CEO of a far smaller company going forward.”

However, in an emailed statement to the Business Journal, XPO Logistics”™ Vice President for Public Relations and Social Media Joe Checkler said the union had its facts wrong the company”™s operations.

“The ”˜incentive award of up to $80 million”™ referred to is not a one-time award, as the Teamsters claim,” Checkler said. “It is a four-year performance award that vests and settles over a six-year time frame, and that $80 million figure represents the highest earnings opportunity possible across the four years, based on very hard-to-reach performance metrics tied to free cash flow both for the company and relative to competitors, as well as 40 rigorous ESG-related metrics.

“Furthermore,” he added, “the money wouldn’t be fully paid out until 2026. To pay out at the full $80 million, the company would have to achieve 120% of the target metrics for every single year in the four-year performance period (2020-2023). I think those are important distinctions to make.”

Checkler added XPO never received money from the British government during the pandemic and the union”™s statement on the amount of furlough money paid to employees was incorrect.

“If you look at the footnote in their press release, they admit that their ”˜estimation”™ was made to ”˜calculate”™ an average monthly claim,” he said.

An earlier version of this article contained incorrect information.