Vendor stock options exercised

Options clearly aren't what they used to be — or the incentives they were meant to be — for most senior home textiles execs, who found their options under water in 2001, as they had been the year before. With company earnings, if any, weak almost across the board, and stock prices for many companies trading for just pennies, options were worthless for many senior execs — they could buy their company's stock in the open market for less than they could with their options. Nonetheless, one senior executive — but just one of the 18 in this year's survey — managed to bank some money by exercising his options in 2001. That's exactly the same number that exercised options the year before, only in 2000 the sole winner was WestPoint Stevens ceo Holcombe Green Jr., who exercised $1.6 million in options.

William B. Kilbride, Mohawk Home $964,000

What's new this year?

This year's ranking includes the cash and stock compensation for 18 executives of public home textiles companies, down from the 22 executives included in last year's survey and down considerably from the 34 senior executives include in the ranking of 1999 salary performance. The steady decrease reflects the number of companies that have gone private, like Springs Industries; those that are no longer required to report their financial performance because of the lower number of shareholders or public debt holders, like Glenoit; or those that have gone out of business, like Thomaston Mills. Burlington Industries is not represented this year since it had not filed a proxy statement by presstime.

Executives new to this year's ranking are David Polley, president, residential division of Mohawk Industries; Chip Fontenot, president and coo of WestPoint Stevens; Tony Williams, former president and coo of Pillowtex Corp.; Joan Amberg, senior vp, bedding division, WestPoint Stevens; Mark Hellwig, vp, supply chain management, Quaker Fabric Corp.; and Anthony Degomes, vp, new business development, Quaker Fabric Corp.

Methodology

Home Textiles Today's Executive Compensation Report is based on data from public documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All files are for the companies' 2001 fiscal year as reported in the Retail and Vendor Report Cards (HTT issues of July 30 and Aug. 12, 2002) and the comparable fiscal year three years prior. See the Report Cards for details of each company's finances, including revenues and net income. All footnotes on revenues and net income included in the Report Cards also apply here.

For the purpose of comparability, in this report, retail cash compensation is defined as annual salary plus bonus plus any long-term incentive plan payouts; it excludes other cash compensation and any form of stock options.

In this report, the value of stock options on the main table refers to the value of options exercised in 2001, as stated in a company's proxy statement.

The value of granted stock options was determined by multiplying the closing price (as of Dec. 31, 2002) of the stock, minus the exercise price, multiplied by the number of share options granted in fiscal 2001.

The report was prepared by senior research specialist Janice Chamberlain and database coordinator Cynthia Myers. Business editor

Don Hogsett and director of market research Kay Anderson oversaw the project.