Boards, investors, management and their consultants can rest easier when confronted with the need to ensure executive and director pay decisions have a justifiable basis.  Australia’s first continuously updated database of executive and director remuneration was made available for use today. GuerdonData™, as the database is known, collates all publicly disclosed data on executive and board remuneration disclosed by Australian public companies.  This is the first database that takes advantage of a series of corporate reforms emanating from CLERP 9, and the associated reforms in executive and board pay disclosure warranted by new Australian Accounting Standards Board and ASX requirements. 

“The latest reforms have put a lot of pressure on company boards to justify executive pay decisions”, said Michael Robinson, a director of Guerdon Associates, the company that manages the database. “With the new disclosure standards, advocates for better governance have been saying that there is no longer any excuse to make decisions unsupported by market data.”  But until the launch of GuerdonData™ there has not been a source for all ASX listed companies’ pay data. 

“At last, boards of directors, their consultants, and investors now have a common source of data to ensure pay decisions are based on a rational comparison with like companies”, said Robinson.  Before it was difficult to source up to date data and have confidence in its accuracy.  In addition, the latest reforms allow a much fuller assessment of pay that, for the first time, can take into account details of executive share and option plans. 

Access to the database is available to anyone for a fee based on the number of individual pay records selected to view.   Users just need to specify which companies and roles they need data on.  Guerdon analysts will download and forward the data electronically.  An on-line version will be made available in August.

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