Why Bassett Furniture Industries, Incorporated's (NASDAQ:BSET) CEO Pay Matters To You

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Robert Spilman has been the CEO of Bassett Furniture Industries, Incorporated (NASDAQ:BSET) since 2000. This analysis aims first to contrast CEO compensation with other companies that have similar market capitalization. After that, we will consider the growth in the business. And finally - as a second measure of performance - we will look at the returns shareholders have received over the last few years. This method should give us information to assess how appropriately the company pays the CEO.

View our latest analysis for Bassett Furniture Industries

How Does Robert Spilman's Compensation Compare With Similar Sized Companies?

According to our data, Bassett Furniture Industries, Incorporated has a market capitalization of US$145m, and pays its CEO total annual compensation worth US$1.0m. (This figure is for the year to November 2018). While we always look at total compensation first, we note that the salary component is less, at US$413k. We examined a group of similar sized companies, with market capitalizations of below US$200m. The median CEO total compensation in that group is US$452k.

It would therefore appear that Bassett Furniture Industries, Incorporated pays Robert Spilman more than the median CEO remuneration at companies of a similar size, in the same market. However, this fact alone doesn't mean the remuneration is too high. We can get a better idea of how generous the pay is by looking at the performance of the underlying business.

The graphic below shows how CEO compensation at Bassett Furniture Industries has changed from year to year.

Is Bassett Furniture Industries, Incorporated Growing?

Over the last three years Bassett Furniture Industries, Incorporated has shrunk its earnings per share by an average of 17% per year (measured with a line of best fit). It achieved revenue growth of 2.3% over the last year.

Sadly for shareholders, earnings per share are actually down, over three years. And the modest revenue growth over 12 months isn't much comfort against the reduced earnings per share. So given this relatively weak performance, shareholders would probably not want to see high compensation for the CEO. Shareholders might be interested in this free visualization of analyst forecasts.

Has Bassett Furniture Industries, Incorporated Been A Good Investment?

Since shareholders would have lost about 48% over three years, some Bassett Furniture Industries, Incorporated shareholders would surely be feeling negative emotions. So shareholders would probably think the company shouldn't be too generous with CEO compensation.

In Summary...

We compared total CEO remuneration at Bassett Furniture Industries, Incorporated with the amount paid at companies with a similar market capitalization. We found that it pays well over the median amount paid in the benchmark group.

We think many shareholders would be underwhelmed with the business growth over the last three years.

Arguably worse, investors are without a positive return for the last three years. This analysis suggests to us that the CEO is paid too generously! CEO compensation is one thing, but it is also interesting to check if the CEO is buying or selling Bassett Furniture Industries (free visualization of insider trades).

If you want to buy a stock that is better than Bassett Furniture Industries, this free list of high return, low debt companies is a great place to look.

We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.

If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.