April 15, 2010—Earlier today, Theo reported that Cablevision spent about $5.2 million to provide its top executives with goodies such as dividends, deferred comp, and some pretty sweet perks (e.g., cars and drivers, —executive home security, and even free cable!). So surely the nation's ...

April 13, 2010—Nearly a decade ago, I penned a short story for the now-defunct Mutual Funds magazine about a company called Mirant. The gist of the story was that while Mirant looked, smelled and was even created in the image of Enron, it was not another ...

March 18, 2010—Three cheers for performance-based incentive awards! That's the bedrock of American-style executive compensation, right? Pay for performance: It's good for shareholders, the tax code encourages it, and such (we imagine) is the stuff of Pay Czar Ken Feinberg's dreams. Take AOL (AOL) and ...

October 28, 2009—In the wake of 2007's credit freeze and 2008's $4.00+ per gallon gasoline prices, we thought that Winnebago's (WGO) filings yesterday (an annual report here and a proxy here) might be interesting. Winnebago, which manufactures the iconic —mobile dwellings that lumber along America's interstates, ...

July 13, 2009—Though it's been awhile since we last footnoted CIT Group (CIT), given the news over the past few days, it seemed like a good idea to take a closer look at their filings. One of the things that immediately jumped out was ...

March 26, 2009—Remember last November, when the auto companies— CEOs flew in their corporate jets to beg the Senate Banking Committee for a taxpayer-funded bailout? After that public relations fiasco, the CEOs assumed contrite tones, assured Americans that they —got it, and promised to start running their ...

July 29, 2008—In addition to handing out a Mercedes, donating to politicians and providing memberships to the Core Club, we can add filing at midnight to the growing list of contra-indicators we've uncovered here at footnoted. How else to explain the news ...

March 14, 2008—Last January, we footnoted the strange sequence of events at Build-A-Bear Workshop (BBW), which at the time was trading close to $30. In various presentations last winter and spring, I used the company as a case study, asking groups of participants to make either the bear or bull ...

February 28, 2008—Judging by what's happening at MF Global (MF) today, it looks as if belonging to the ultra-exclusive Core Club may just be a contra-indicator. Footnoted regulars may remember that last month we footnoted about the sudden departure of CFO Amy Butte, whose parting gifts included continued Core ...

February 8, 2008—When we last footnoted First Marblehead (FMD) back in mid-November, the stock was trading at over $30 a share. Five weeks later, it had fallen 65%. Now, word comes in the form of this 8-K that First Marblehead's two most senior executives -- CEO Jack Kopnisky and Chairman ...