Personal-finance

A lot of real world experience is evident from the author's explanations of the methods recommended for use in dealing with individuals and families, and their retirement planning. Technical issues are dealt with comprehensively as well as the human element, which is often overlooked in a technical publication.

How IRA money is best used in estate planning is covered in detail. For estate planning the authors also give a very detailed explanation of how life insurance can be used to pay estate taxes, leaving the bulk of a large estate intact. The chapter goes into great detail about the life insurance industry, types of policies and the pros and cons of life insuranace illustations.

This book slices and dices the total compensation of executives in such brand name companies as GE, Oracle, Sun, Wal-Mart, and Enron, to provide you with guidance and solid benchmarking information you can immediately apply to the situation in your company.

Reda and McMahon study everything from the written executive compensation strategies of these companies, to how they pay in terms of base pay, incentives, and equity compensation, and provide actual proxy analysis about what is going on in American's elite companies. They provide a computer disk that you can use to do your own analysis of the information-this is an important tool you can put to work with your executive team. But this book is more than just a compilation of practice information-the authors provide analysis and commentary about what typifies the top-performers and suggest how you might add value to your business from taking their expert advice.

Each company in the study is summarized in terms of the elements of compensation, the composition of their board compensation committee, how they target total compensation and the market, and how they measures executive performance at the organizational and individual executive level. Whether you are interested in a specific company, a number of key companies, or top performers in general, Pay to Win will get you on the proper track.

Chapter 1 - Overview of CEO Compensation Trends. Defines executive compensation, reviews current trends in executive compensation, suggests the examples set by successful companies, and reviews developments in executive compensation as well as reviews what the authors predict we can see ahead. Chapter 2 - Findings of the Study. Reviews how companies were selected, reviews the importance of benchmarking top company solutions, reviews why a CEO is important, discusses roles and goals of the board compensation committee, provides information on characteristics of executive incentives, and reviews strategies of important companies. Chapter 3 - Analysis of Findings. Addresses the elements of executive pay including base pay, annual incentives, total cash compensation, long-term incentives, stock ownership and employment agreements and change in control agreements.

Chapter 4 - Good Corporate Governance. Provides a primer on what constitutes good corporate governance and guides us in crating a CEO employment agreement. Chapter 5 - Designing a Pay Strategy. Guides readers on shareholder and finance considerations as well as stock ownership among CEOs. Chapter 6 - How Small and Mid-Sized Companies Can Use Winning Company Strategies. The authors advise us that top compensation strategies and solutions are not just for the top companies. Instead, they provide sage advice to us on how best to work best practices in your company whether large or small. Chapter 7 - Two Case Studies: How Leadership and Pay Practices Impact Company Performance. This chapter discusses practice at IBM and National Presto Industries, two vastly difference companies. It shows how top executive reward strategies can help companies meet their business goals.

Chapter 8 - Profiles of the 200 Best-Performing Companies. This chapter provides an analysis of executive pay on a company-by-company basis to let you do some digging into the information yourself. Pay to Win closes with information on professional and trade organizations and a list of periodicals. The computer disk adds value to the book and permits you to continue the executive compensation developmental process on your own.

The information provided by the authors of Pay to Win is factual and based on solid investigation. This book should be read by those planning compensation in their companies or anyone interested in how some of the best companies define the concept of "pay for performance" for their executive team. It is a helpful tool to both the novice executive compensation reviewer or to those with considerable knowledge and experience. It provides a ready source of information on how a bevy or executive reward tools are and can be used and gives expert advice to those seeking knowledge on techniques and approaches to rewarding critical business leaders. This book belongs on your bookshelf along with the top-selling pay and reward books published during the last few years.