Company: AVD
Filing Date: 2025-05-29
Form Type: DEF 14A
Source: 0000950170-25-079166
Chunk: 42

Company: AMERICAN VANGUARD CORP
Filing Date: 2025-05-29
Form: DEF 14A
Chunk 42
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 Consultant

During 2024 the Compensation Committee’s independent compensation consultant, Exequity, revisited the group of comparator companies for purposes of benchmarking executive compensation, which analysis it completed in November 2024. In connection with those efforts, Exequity defined a group of comparators, focusing on product lines, GICS numbers, and a proxy review to determine whether and to what extent peer companies identified the Company (or others in the Company’s peer group) as comparators. The comparator group (“Proxy Peers”) identified by Exequity consisted of 14 publicly traded specialty chemical companies, namely: AdvanSix Inc. (ASIX), Arcadium Lithium plc (ALTM), Aspen Aerogels, Inc. (ASPN),Balchem Corporation (BCPC), Core Molding Technologies, Inc. (CMT), CVR Partners LP (UAN), Ecovyst Inc. (ECVT), Hawkins, Inc. (HWKN), Haynes International, Inc. (HAYN), Innospec Inc. (IOSP), Intrepid Potash, Inc. (IPI), LSB Industries, Inc. (LXU), Quaker Chemical Corporation (KWR) and Tredegar Corporation (TG). Proxy Peers had median revenues of $706 million per annum, median market capitalization $926 million and median enterprise value of $1,305 million. To our knowledge American Vanguard is the only publicly traded crop protection Company of its size, and no Proxy Peers operate at all in the crop protection sector.

According to Exequity’s analysis, 2024 compensation for the Company’s new CEO (on an annualized basis) yielded the following comparative results, which are also depicted in the table below:

The CEO base salary was below the 25th of the Proxy Peers.

The bonus amount (of $0) for the CEO was below the 25 th percentile for target bonus of the Proxy Peers.

Annualized total cash for the CEO was below the 25 th percentile for target total cash of the Proxy Peers.

Equity granted in 2024 to the CEO was between the 25 th percentile and the median of the Proxy Peers.

Annualized total direct compensation for the Company’s CEO was below the 25 th percentile of the Proxy Peers.

On average, according to the Exequity study, compensation for other NEOs was as follows: salary was at approximately the 25thpercentile for salaries of Proxy Peers, while incentive cash, total