Shopping Centers Today is the news magazine of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)
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By Joel Groover ICSC's LATEST COMPENSATION survey for North America highlights the optimism that prevailed in 2015 as companies hired staff, sweetened bonuses and boosted salaries. "Par- ticularly for real estate companies, compensation tends to be directly tied to performance," said Josh R. Anbil, a senior managing director at compensa- tion consulting firm FPL Associates, which specializes in the real estate in- dustry and has offices in the U.S. and abroad. The firm produced the 240- page report on behalf of ICSC. "The survey results indicate that 2015 was a strong year for the industry. This drove increases in salaries and bonuses, as well as expanded eligibility for long- term incentives." The participating ICSC members, surveyed last summer, provided details about salaries, bonuses, long-term com- pensation and other fundamentals for nearly 100 positions in retail real es- tate — from junior level to the C-suite. Approximately 80 percent of these responding companies are private. Roughly 77 percent of the companies said they raised salaries last year, with the average increase being 3.6 percent. Nearly 70 percent of the respondents said they plan to keep raising salaries this year. "This is in line with com- pensation trends in other sectors and slightly above the long-term historical average," Anbil said. The good results come as no sur- prise to recruiters focused on the shop- ping center industry. "It was definitely a very positive year, probably the most active since 2010," said recruiter Da- vid Poline, president and CEO of Atlanta-based Poline Associates. "At the various conferences we attended throughout the year, our clients and candidates alike reported high deal- making activity, and we noticed el- evated levels of optimism about the industry in general." Cash bonuses increased at 56 percent of the companies, stayed the same at 23 percent of them and were lowered at all the rest. The level of eq- uity or long-term compensation was generally flat relative to the year be- fore, the report says. Some 70 percent of those responding went into 2015 confident that performance would be better than in 2014, Anbil notes. "It is not as though 2014 was a bad year, or even 2012 or 2013," he said. "The industry has climbed out of recession, and most of these firms have experi- The Institute For Real Estate Operating Companie s The bridge between institutional investors and real estate operating companies FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: Kathy Norton Managing Director Tel: +1 312-925-3680 Email: k.norton@irei.com Jonathan Schein Managing Director Tel: +1 917-854-2345 Email: j.schein@irei.com The Institute for Real Estate Operating Companies A division of Institutional Real Estate, Inc. 50 S C T / A p r i l 2 0 1 6 Industry salaries, bonuses grew in 2015