The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "stock options" ...
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Perfect Payday
A series of stories exposing a huge scandal in corporate America where stock option grants are manipulated to enrich company insiders.
Tags: stock; option; grant; scandal; company insider; SEC; Wall Street; K Street
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The National Institutes of Health: Public Servant or Private Marketer?
This series examines how payments from drug companies to scientists at the National Institutes of Health cause a conflict of interest that affects health care and policy recommendations. Even under the partial reforms announced by the presidentially appointed NIH director in 2004, some NIH scientists would still be able to take compensation such as stock options and consulting fees.
Tags: conflict of interest; moonlighting; prescription drugs; drug companies
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How to Fix Corporate Governance
This story discusses how shareholders have lost faith in corporations. It chronicles the recent corporate collapses and reveals the shady business practices that caused the demise of America's corporate culture.
Tags: Enron; shareholders; SEC; investors; stock options
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Hot For U.S. Stocks, Foreigners Get Burned In Regulatory Limbo
The prospect of investing in American stocks is a tempting option for Europeans and other internationals. But beware, says the WSJ, for a stock brokerage company called International Asset Management (IAM) is busy duping novice investors by selling them obscure shares. To worsen matters even the regulatory bodies refuse to cooperate. The report includes accounts by rookie investors in Dublin, Australia and Zurich who have been cheated by IAM and its various other affiliates elsewhere.
Tags: Shares; stocks; Securities and Exchange Commission; brokers; International Asset Management
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Pay for No Performance
The Wall Street Journal investigates the trend of "risk-free" compensation for chief executive officers. "CEOs were supposed to get top dollar only when they got top results," the report begins. "Now, many are getting top dollar no matter what the results." The article uses information from a survey conducted by William Mercer, Inc. for the WSJ, and finds salaries, bonuses, and especially stock options, are sending CEO compensation skyward, while at the same so-called "risk-free packages" are eroding the "linkage between pay and performance."
Tags: wall street; CEO; chief executive; bonus; performance bonus; stock options; grant; megagrant; compensation; retention; stock market
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Medicine's Middlemen
An investigation by the New York Times revealed that "just two companies could determine which life-saving drugs and other medical products most of the nation's hospitals bought and at what price. As national gatekeepers for billions of dollars in hospitals supply contracts, these two companies used their unregulated power to enrich themselves through pervasive conflicts of interest and self dealing... Until the Times examined them, these two for-profit companies, Premier and Novation, operated as they wished. They claimed they saved hospitals money by buying in bulk -- but never had to prove it. As private companies with no government oversight, they refused to disclose how they did business, including how much money the makers of the drugs and medical devices were paying them to get supply contracts. In this environment, Premier executives collected millions in personal stock options from the very manufacturers whose company products they were supposed to evaluate objectively. The buying companies steered thousands of hospitals to manufacturers in which the buying companies themselves had a financial interest."
Tags: Premier; Novation; drugs; medical; medicine; conflict of interest; private business; stock options
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The great CEO pay heist, This stuff is wrong, The amazing stock option sleight of hand
In this three-part series, Fortune examines whether the increasing CEOs' pay is justified, and how the trend affects the business world in general. Part one lists the highest-paid U.S. CEOs and points to six main elements of today's megapay machine. Part two features the opinions of several high-ranking CEOs and consultants, who exchanged their candor for anonymity granted by Fortune. The third part explains how the stock options received by CEOs work, and what is the cost to the corporations and their shareholders.
Tags: Citigroup; General Electric; Apple; Dell; stocks and bonds; investors; annual reports; disclosure; proxy statements; Larry Ellison; Jack Welch; Sandy Weill; Steve Jobs; compensation committees' code of silence; shareholders; Coca-Cola
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Private College Presidents Enjoy Another Lucrative Year
The Chronicle of Higher Education looks at the increasing compensation packages of the chief executives of private colleges. The story reveals that "the number of presidents earning in the $400,000s and more than $500,000 took a substantial leap in the fiscal year 2000, while the number earning in the $300,000 dipped slightly." The report includes survey data about the pay and benefits of the top leaders of 600 private colleges and universities, as well as the institutions' expenditures and revenues for 1999-2000.
Tags: National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education; stock options; deans; professors; faculty; research; doctoral universities; master's colleges and universities; baccalaureate colleges
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The Options
Many top companies, including Nextel, Qualcomm, Microsoft and Dell, figure profits without calculating expenditures on employee stock options. "They would have had their profits reduced -- or losses increased -- by as much as 139 percent, according to annual reports they filed with the SEC," Steffy reports.
Tags: stocks; stock options; S&P; profits; Microsoft; Bill Gates; Michael Dell; Irwin Jacobs; John Chambers; Dell Computer Corp.; Qualcomm; Cisco Systems; SEC
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Scandal on Wall Street
"In a six-month investigation, Business Week found major improprieties at the American Stock Exchange. In contrast to its serene public image as a technologically savvy, scandal-free market for trading of stocks and options, Business Week found a veritable snake pit of improper trading and investor ripoffs."