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Download the full report here.

FW Cook's 2025 Annual Incentive Plan Report provides a comprehensive review of the annual incentive plans of the top 250 largest companies in the S&P 500 by market capitalization. This report examines trends in financial and non-financial metrics, goal-setting practices, and actual payouts, comparing findings over the past 3-year and 6-year periods. 

Key Highlights:

• Plan Types: Formulaic annual incentive plan design with predetermined metrics and weightings remains the chosen approach by 93% of companies, aligning with shareholder and proxy advisor preferences 
• Financial Measures: Profit and revenue measures are the most prevalent and tend to account for the greatest weighting
• Non-Financial Measures: A non-financial component is highly prevalent in annual incentive plans as a complement to core financial measures, with 80% of companies using a non-financial measure
• Goal-Setting: Most companies continue to set more challenging target goals relative to prior year's actual results

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