Whose Company Is This?

Shareholders hate it when a corporation gives them a piddling return but pays the CEO lavishly. At ITT, some are rebelling.

Talk about chutzpah. Did ITT chairman Rand Araskog deserve the 103% raise that jacked his pay up to $11.4 million last year and made him one of America's best-paid executives, even though his company's profits rose just 4%? No way, say furious investors led by the California Public Employees' Retirement System, the largest U.S. pension fund. Calpers, which holds 1.15 million shares of ITT stock, or about 1%, is so steamed over Araskog's raise that it has threatened to vote to oust the company's directors at the annual meeting next week.

An insignificant threat? On the contrary. Institutions like Calpers --...

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