Assignment task: For McDonalds (MCD)
Problem 1: Describe the boards of directors in terms of size (number of directors), proportion of insiders (company executives)/outsiders, proportion of members related to the CEO (family members, friends, former business partners), and assess the degree of board independence;
Problem 2: Describe the power of the CEO in the company. You can base your assessment on his/her age, tenure as CEO, connections, background, compensation and other factors that you see as important. How well aligned do you think are the CEO incentives with those of the shareholders based on the structure of CEO's compensation package and CEO's ownership of company shares?
Problem 3: Describe the composition of the shareholder pool. Are there any influential stockholders (wealthy individuals or institutional shareholders) or the shareholder pool is mostly diffuse? What is the size of their shareholdings in the company? Any recent cases of shareholder activism?
Problem 4: Examine whether there were any significant changes in executive compensation related to COVID-19. For example, did the companies reduce executive compensation to save cash or did they reward their executives for exceptional performance during the pandemic?