MONEY

New Chico's CEO to make many millions

Casey Logan
CLOGAN@NEWS-PRESS.COM
Shelley Broader is president and CEO of Chico's FAS.

The incoming president and CEO of Fort Myers-based Chico’s FAS can earn more than $18 million over the next three years, according to a Form 8-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Shelley Broader, most recently based in Canada as president and CEO of Wal-Mart Stores’ Europe, Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa region, will begin leading Chico’s FAS on Dec. 1. She will earn an annual base salary of $1.1 million.

Broader, according to an Oct. 27 filing, will get a $1.03 million sign-on bonus, contingent on her and her family relocating to the Fort Myers area. She will have to repay all of that if she voluntarily resigns without “good reason” in less than a year, and half of it if she does so between her first and second anniversary.

Initially, Broader is expected to live in the Fort Myers area while her husband and children remain in Canada so the children can finish the school year. She will be provided a temporary place to live through July 31 and up to eight company-paid trips between Florida and Canada.

On Jan. 4, Broader will receive a sign-on grant of restricted shares of the company’s common stock with a fair market value of $3 million, which will vest 25 percent one year later and 25 percent one year after that, with the other 50 percent vesting three years after the grant date.

Broader is also eligible for an annual bonus. She is entitled to minimum guaranteed bonuses of $275,000 for fiscal 2015 and $1.375 million for fiscal 2016. The bonus could be as much as $1.65 million for 2015 and $1.93 million for 2016.

Broader will also be awarded an equity grant on March 1, with a fair market value of $6.5 million – half of that will be restricted shares of the company’s common stock, with the other half in performance share units. Those shares will vest in equal annual amounts over three years. The performance share units are contingent on her achieving the company's financial objectives, based on a metric called return on net assets.

All of that, presuming her base salary is unchanged, equals at least $18.23 million she could earn over roughly the next three years.

If Broader’s employment is terminated at any time without good cause, she will continue to receive her base salary for two years.

In February, Chico’s FAS announced it was eliminating 240 corporate management positions as part of an organizational alignment that included closing 120 underperforming stores between 2015 and 2017.

The cost-reduction moves, it was announced in February, would lead to nearly $100 million in capital spending savings in 2015, according to Chico's, including $38 million saved from the jobs cuts.

Connect with this reporter: email clogan@news-press.com and follow on Twitter @caseylo