The Wall Street Journal recently released a report on the highest paid CFOs, and we’d just like to remind you that comparison is the thief of joy.

With that PSA out of the way, a few headline findings: Unsurprisingly, all but one of the highest paid CFOs are employed by S&P 500 companies, with the rare exception of pandemic wunderkind Zoom. There are only two who also appeared in 2022’s top 10, making the changing of the guard clear, and half of the top-earning CFOs are women.

At three companies in the top 10, the CFO made more than the CEO, and at two, CFO compensation grew more year over year than CEO pay.

So, on to the hallowed top 10. In the top slot, there’s John David Rainey of Walmart, who made almost $40 million in salary, a bonus, stock options, and other forms of compensation in 2023. (We hope he has a gorgeous kitchen.) Next up is the sole non-S&P 500 CFO, Zoom’s Kelly Steckelberg, whose pay increased more than the tech company CEO’s did (though he still made more than twice as much). Her $36.7 million compensation in 2023 was more than 93 times higher than the year before.

Meanwhile, the third-highest paid CFO, AMD’s Jean Hu, and Aon’s Christa Davies, in fourth place, both made more than their companies’ CEOs.

For more on the biggest CFO salaries, click here.—NP

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A massive jury verdict is a rather large monkey wrench for any company’s spreadsheet. Insurance carrier Chubb is calling out the widening gulf between organizations’ liability coverage and their risk of loss.

Chubb found that large verdicts against corporate defendants increased 273% (that’s not a typo) between 2020 and 2022, to $18.3 billion, in the 10 industry sectors the company analyzed. The industries included healthcare, manufacturing, construction, real estate, and consumer products, among others.

Amid the risk that “nuclear verdicts”—verdicts that result in at least $10 million in damages awarded to plaintiffs—pose, organizations in all but one of those 10 sectors actually purchased a lower median insurance limit than nearly a decade ago, according to the report.

Liability risk is becoming more expensive due to the increasing prevalence of third-party litigation financing, and a growing public perception that “the system, including big business, is rigged against everyday people,” Seth Gillston, head of North America industry practices at Chubb, said in the report.

“Companies that underestimate the severity of liability losses may face financial, brand, and long-term stock price impacts,” he said.

Click here to keep reading about the liability coverage gap.—AZ

Greedflation is back in the discourse—though did it ever really leave?

Last week, Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey sent letters to Target, Walmart, and Amazon “linking the retailers’ pricing practice to greedflation and demanding they disclose information about how they have made pricing decisions over the last two years,” the three-term Democrat said in a release.

While all three of the retail giants have announced recent price cuts, Casey claims “the overall cost of goods began to drop well before these price decreases occurred.”

“Given the slowdown in the price of goods since at least late summer of 2023, Americans should have been seeing decreases in prices for many products for over a year, not just now,” Casey said in a statement. “It is now readily apparent that corporations have had the ability to lower consumers’ costs and still turn a profit.”

Unless you were living under a rock, you surely remember the “shrinkflation” era of the past year. Even Cookie Monster got on board, for goodness’ sake.

Greedflation, or exploiting inflation to bolster profits, however, has always been a murkier scapegoat. Economists at the Federal Reserve of San Francisco, for instance, found that corporate price hikes may not have been the primary driver of the inflation surge of 2021 to 2022, nor of more recent inflation starting in mid-2022, calling the greedflation theory into question.

For more on Sen. Casey’s letter, click here.—NP

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