Company: DHR
Filing Date: 2025-03-26
Form Type: DEF 14A
Source: 0000313616-25-000081
Chunk: 34

Company: DANAHER CORP /DE/
Filing Date: 2025-03-26
Form: DEF 14A
Chunk 34
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 company. During the year we continued to invest in Danaher’s future growth, investing approximately $1.6 billion in research and development and approximately $1.4 billion in capital expenditures to support future core growth; and investing over $0.5 billion in acquisitions that strengthen our capabilities in key strategic vectors. In addition to these significant investments in our growth, we returned more than $6.7 billion to our shareholders through stock buybacks and dividends and generated $23.9 billion in sales, $4.9 billion in operating profit and $6.7 billion in operating cash flow.

For a further discussion of Danaher's business performance, please see "Proxy Summary — Business Highlights."

Executive Compensation Program Objectives

With the goal of building long-term value for our shareholders, we maintain an executive compensation program designed to:

• attract and retain executives with the leadership skills, attributes and experience necessary to succeed in an enterprise with Danaher’s size, diversity and global footprint;

• motivate executives to demonstrate exceptional personal performance and perform consistently at or above the levels that we expect, over the long-term and through a range of economic cycles; and

• link compensation to the achievement of goals and objectives that we believe best correlate with the creation of long-term shareholder value, including financial, strategic and operational objectives.

To achieve these objectives our compensation program combines annual and long-term components, cash and equity, and fixed and variable elements, with a bias toward long-term equity awards tied closely to shareholder returns and subject to significant vesting and/or holding periods. Our executive compensation program rewards our executive officers when they help increase long-term shareholder value, achieve annual business goals and build long-term careers with Danaher.

The science and technology markets in which we operate are competitive, with demand sometimes exceeding the supply of talent, resulting in significant increases in compensation paid by the companies with whom we compete for this talent. The same conditions exist in the market for executive-level talent that can provide innovative leadership while managing at a global scale across multiple complex businesses. These trends require us to regularly and proactively assess our executive compensation program to ensure it remains competitive in light of market conditions.

Key Recent Changes to Executive Compensation Program

Danaher’s Compensation Committee regularly reviews our executive compensation program with a view toward continuous improvement and consideration of investor feedback. As a result of these regular reviews, in recent years, the Committee has made several enhancements to the program to reinforce the already-strong linkages (1) between pay and performance, (2) between the interests of our shareholders