Related link:
- The directory

These are indeed trying times for CEOs. As our cover story notes, investors have lost a great deal of faith in corporations, following the deflation of the New Economy bubble, the post-boom stock bust and now a series of scandals affecting such big name companies as Enron, Arthur Andersen and Tyco.

The malaise is reflected in our list of Virginia companies and their CEOs by a performance measure called the compound annual return (CAR). Based on proxy statements and other reports, the CAR measures how a company has performed regarding stock appreciation and reinvested dividends.

By way of example, Dennis W. Bakke, president and CEO of highly regarded energy firm AES Corp., registered a stunning 827.7 CAR on last year's list. AES stock was well into the $60s and AES had promising projects across the globe. A year later, stock is down in the single digits, AES confronts various problems and Bakke's CAR is down to a mere 7.7. Check through the list and you'll see a lot of similar tales, reflecting the gloom that the economic recovery can't seem to shake.

To be sure, there are some winners this year, such as Lawrence P. Castellani of Advance Auto Parts. For most everyone else, well, there's always next year. Our directory of CEO performance:

Notes
- Data: proxy statements and individual companies

- Calculations are for the top 100 Virginia companies, by market capitalization

- Compound annual return (CAR) includes stock appreciation plus reinvested dividends

- If a company has not yet filed a proxy statement, NA appears in its entry. In these cases, the date of the company's IPO appears by its name. If a company provided specific partial-year information, then these figures were used. N/A also appears if a company is not required by the SEC to provide a stock performance graph.

- If a CEO has been incumbent for less than a year, CAR is calculated for the longest period covered in the stock performance graph. In this case, the symbol * indicates that the CEO is recently appointed and the CAR is not attributable to his stewardship.

- CEO's stake is the percentage of shares under his voting control.

- The year-end closest to each CEO's appointment is used when calculating CAR.

Return to Virginia Business - July 2002