What Did Atomera's (NASDAQ:ATOM) CEO Take Home Last Year?

This article will reflect on the compensation paid to Scott Bibaud who has served as CEO of Atomera Incorporated (NASDAQ:ATOM) since 2015. This analysis will also look to assess whether the CEO is appropriately paid, considering recent earnings growth and investor returns for Atomera.

See our latest analysis for Atomera

Comparing Atomera Incorporated's CEO Compensation With the industry

At the time of writing, our data shows that Atomera Incorporated has a market capitalization of US$235m, and reported total annual CEO compensation of US$1.4m for the year to December 2019. That's just a smallish increase of 4.6% on last year. While we always look at total compensation first, our analysis shows that the salary component is less, at US$350k.

For comparison, other companies in the same industry with market capitalizations ranging between US$100m and US$400m had a median total CEO compensation of US$1.2m. So it looks like Atomera compensates Scott Bibaud in line with the median for the industry. Furthermore, Scott Bibaud directly owns US$3.5m worth of shares in the company, implying that they are deeply invested in the company's success.

On an industry level, roughly 14% of total compensation represents salary and 86% is other remuneration. According to our research, Atomera has allocated a higher percentage of pay to salary in comparison to the wider industry. If total compensation is slanted towards non-salary benefits, it indicates that CEO pay is linked to company performance.

Atomera Incorporated's Growth

Atomera Incorporated has seen its earnings per share (EPS) increase by 15% a year over the past three years. Its revenue is up 55% over the last year.

Overall this is a positive result for shareholders, showing that the company has improved in recent years. The combination of strong revenue growth with medium-term earnings per share improvement certainly points to the kind of growth we like to see. Moving away from current form for a second, it could be important to check this free visual depiction of what analysts expect for the future.

Has Atomera Incorporated Been A Good Investment?

Most shareholders would probably be pleased with Atomera Incorporated for providing a total return of 153% over three years. As a result, some may believe the CEO should be paid more than is normal for companies of similar size.

In Summary...

As we noted earlier, Atomera pays its CEO in line with similar-sized companies belonging to the same industry. Few would be critical of the leadership, since returns have been juicy and earnings are moving in the right direction. Indeed, many might consider that Scott is compensated rather modestly, given the solid company performance! Stockholders might even be okay with a bump in pay, seeing as how investor returns have been so strong.

CEO pay is simply one of the many factors that need to be considered while examining business performance. We did our research and identified 6 warning signs (and 2 which make us uncomfortable) in Atomera we think you should know about.

Arguably, business quality is much more important than CEO compensation levels. So check out this free list of interesting companies that have HIGH return on equity and low debt.

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. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

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