Director Compensation at Public Asset Managers
Review reported non-employee director compensation at publicly traded asset managers, including annual cash retainers, equity awards, board leadership premiums, and committee fees. Data are drawn from each company’s latest available proxy statement (DEF 14A).
Reported compensation. These figures summarize the total compensation companies disclosed for non-employee directors. Results are grouped by board role and include equity awards.
Proxy statements generally report compensation for the completed prior fiscal year.
Total reported compensation by board role
Board chairs and lead independent directors are identified from each company’s governance disclosure and matched to its Director Compensation Table.
A dagger marks a figure resting on fewer than five companies; results may be sensitive to individual companies. Quartiles are shown only where at least five companies report. The most recent filing year is usually thin, because proxy statements generally report compensation for the completed prior fiscal year.
Modeled package. Select a board role, committee assignments, equity treatment, and peer group. Results show the distribution of annual compensation implied by company fee schedules; they are not amounts reported for a specific director.
Choose an AUM range or enter a custom minimum and maximum, in $ billions. The ranges match executive compensation so a peer group carries between the two pages. AUM is one measure of scale; consider business model and board complexity when selecting peers.
AUM is one measure of scale. Board scope also reflects business model: an alternative manager, an investment bank and a traditional manager carry different oversight even at similar size.
Not every company discloses a separate fee for every role. The first view uses only companies that price the whole selection; the second keeps the full peer group and assumes an undisclosed fee is nil.
The annual equity award is roughly 54% of the median package and is included by default. Excluding it gives a cash-only view.
Against reported compensation
The modeled package beside what companies disclosed paying directors in the same role. These are different measures: one is built from published fee schedules, the other is the total each company reported. They are shown together for context, not combined.
Package components
Component medians describe the structure of the peer data. They will not necessarily add to the package median, because the package is calculated company by company before percentiles are determined.
Company disclosures. The table presents the latest fee schedule identified for each company, with the proxy year shown in each row.
Latest disclosed fee schedules
Scroll sideways for the full schedule. The company column stays in view.
Equity award vehicles
The table summarizes the equity vehicles disclosed for non-employee directors and the associated vesting or settlement treatment.
Vesting and settlement terms
Classifications are based on the vesting and settlement language in each filing. When terms are not stated, the record is shown as “Not stated”.
Publicly traded asset managers · SEC proxy statements (DEF 14A) · latest available filing per company · next refresh is expected August 2027
Scope and peer group
This analysis covers 37 publicly traded asset managers and diversified financial companies with a material asset-management business. Each company is represented by its latest available proxy statement. The population does not include endowment, foundation, or public-pension trustees, whose boards are frequently unpaid or paid per diem.
Peer groups are selected by assets under management, using the same ranges as executive compensation so that a peer group carries between the two pages. A custom minimum and maximum may be entered instead, in $ billions.
AUM is a familiar measure of scale but an incomplete measure of board scope. The panel mixes traditional asset managers, alternative managers, investment banks and diversified financial firms, and director pay also reflects market capitalization, revenue, regulatory complexity and board workload. Consider business model alongside AUM when selecting peers.
Reported compensation
Reported compensation comes from each company’s Director Compensation Table. Board chairs and lead independent directors are identified from governance disclosures and matched by name to compensation records. Director-level pay is available for 31 companies; leadership-role matches were completed for 77% of applicable company-years. Where a named chair cannot be matched to a paid director, that director is counted in the general population rather than excluded.
Modeled packages
The package model applies the selected role and committee assignments to each company with sufficient fee-schedule disclosure. It calculates a total package for each company and then determines the peer-group percentiles. Component medians are shown separately to describe pay structure and should not be added to reproduce the package median.
Missing disclosures are not treated as zero by default. Not every company discloses a separate fee for every role. The default view includes only companies that disclose every selected element, and the sample size is shown with the result. A second view retains the full peer group and treats an undisclosed fee as nil; where that view is selected, the number of companies contributing an assumed zero is stated alongside the result. The distinction is material: for a board-chair package the two approaches differ by approximately $55,000 at the median.
Board leadership amounts are added only where the filing confirms they are incremental. Most companies describe an additional chair or lead-director retainer, which is added to the base retainer. 2 companies describe the chair’s total cash retainer instead; for those the leadership amount replaces the base retainer rather than adding to it. Where a filing does not establish which basis applies, that company is excluded from board-chair modeling; no company on this panel is currently excluded on that ground.
The model is intended for peer-group analysis, not exact reconstruction of an individual director’s compensation. No group-level reconciliation against reported director compensation is published at present: the validator that produced the figure previously shown here compared cash only, while the figure was described as comparing packages, and it predates the complete-case default, the per-company leadership basis and the WisdomTree ticker alias. A replacement will be published only when a validator encoding the rules this page actually uses emits a result together with its denominator.
Sample sizes
Every result is published with the number of companies behind it. A median is shown where at least two companies report; quartiles are shown where at least five do. A figure resting on fewer than five companies carries a dagger and a caution that results may be sensitive to individual companies. Disclosed observations are not withheld for being few.
Equity classifications
Current director equity programs in this peer group are predominantly delivered through full-value shares or share units. Option grants appear in 12 of 922 director-years (1.3%), at a single company. No performance-vested director award was identified in the 706 summary notes recorded for this peer group, searched for “performance”, “psu”, “tsr”, “metric”, “goal”; the filings themselves were not systematically checked for this feature, so this is evidence about the notes rather than proof about the filings. The prevalence of full-value, time-based awards is consistent with the governance objective of aligning directors with shareholders without tying vesting to management performance targets.
Companies describe the same instrument in many ways, so each disclosed vehicle is sorted into a family — restricted stock units, deferred units, restricted stock, common stock, options, a combination or election, or an unspecified share award. The wording used by each company is preserved and shown on the schedule.
Vesting and settlement classifications are based on the language in each filing:
| State | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Settlement after board service | Settlement, or a holding requirement, runs until the director leaves the board. |
| Fixed date or earlier departure | Released on a stated date, or on departure if that comes first. |
| Settlement deferred to a fixed date | Vested, with shares delivered later on a date unrelated to board service. |
| Available after time-based vesting | Vests after a stated service period, most often one year. |
| Available at grant | No further restriction stated once the award is made. |
| Not stated | The filing does not state the terms. |
Vesting and settlement determine when shares become available. Other constraints may still apply, including share-ownership guidelines, insider-trading policies and securities-law windows. A separate marker records companies that permit a director to elect deferral without requiring it.
Timing and data coverage
Proxy statements generally report director compensation for the completed prior fiscal year, while committee rosters usually describe membership as of the proxy date. Midyear changes in committee assignments can therefore prevent an exact reconstruction of an individual director’s reported pay. Against a median director cash figure of approximately $130,000, a single committee change is worth roughly 6–12% of that director’s cash and a change of committee chair 12–23%.
The most recent filing year is normally thin for reported compensation, because only the earliest filers of a season are represented. The year selector defaults to the most recent year that supports a median for every board role.
Where a company’s newest filing does not state a fee that earlier filings did, the value from its most recent filing that does is shown, with that year marked. Values are not carried forward more than two filings.
Limitations
- Fee schedules and reported compensation may cover different dates.
- Committee assignments can change during the year.
- Not all companies disclose separate fees for every role.
- AUM is an incomplete measure of board scope; business model and corporate complexity also matter.
- Equity vesting and settlement terms are not stated for every company.
- Per-meeting fees are disclosed by two companies in this panel, both only above an attendance threshold, and are not modeled.
Sources and refresh schedule
Amounts are drawn from the director compensation disclosures of each company’s proxy statement. Reported compensation is taken from the Director Compensation Table; fee schedules are taken from the accompanying narrative.
The page uses the latest proxy statement available for each company and is refreshed annually after the proxy season is substantially complete. The next refresh is expected in August 2027.
Terms
Free to use and cite with attribution to Michael Oak Advisors (data.michaeloak.com). Provided as is, without warranty. Not investment, legal or tax advice.