Allen Shiver has been the CEO of Flowers Foods Inc (NYSE:FLO) since 2013. This analysis aims first to contrast CEO compensation with other companies that have similar market capitalization. Next, we’ll consider growth that the business demonstrates. And finally we will reflect on how common stockholders have fared in the last few years, as a secondary measure of performance. This process should give us an idea about how appropriately the CEO is paid.

Check out our latest analysis for Flowers Foods

How Does Allen Shiver’s Compensation Compare With Similar Sized Companies?

At the time of writing our data says that Flowers Foods Inc has a market cap of US$4.1b, and is paying total annual CEO compensation of US$6.5m. (This is based on the year to 2017). We think total compensation is more important but we note that the CEO salary is lower, at US$1.0m. As part of our analysis we looked at companies in the same jurisdiction, with market capitalizations of US$2.0b to US$6.4b. The median total CEO compensation was US$4.9m.

Thus we can conclude that Allen Shiver receives more in total compensation than the median of a group of companies in the same market, and of similar size to Flowers Foods Inc. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean the pay is too high. We can better assess whether the pay is overly generous by looking into the underlying business performance.

You can see a visual representation of the CEO compensation at Flowers Foods, below.

Is Flowers Foods Inc Growing?

Flowers Foods Inc has reduced its earnings per share by an average of 7.3% a year, over the last three years. Revenue was pretty flat on last year.

Unfortunately, earnings per share have trended lower over the last three years. And the flat revenue hardly impresses. These factors suggest that the business performance wouldn’t really justify a high pay packet for the CEO.

You might want to check this free visual report on analyst forecasts for future earnings.

Has Flowers Foods Inc Been A Good Investment?

Flowers Foods Inc has not done too badly by shareholders, with a total return of 1.4%, over three years. But they probably wouldn’t be so happy as to think the CEO should be paid more than is normal, for companies around this size.

In Summary…

We examined the amount Flowers Foods Inc pays its CEO, and compared it to the amount paid by similar sized companies. Our data suggests that it pays above the median CEO pay within that group.

Neither earnings per share nor revenue have been growing sufficiently fast to impress us, over the last three years.

And while shareholder returns have been respectable, they have hardly been superb. So you may want to delve deeper, because we don’t think the CEO pay is too low. So you may want to check if insiders are buying Flowers Foods shares with their own money (free access).

Or you might prefer gaze upon this detailed graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow .

To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.

The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.