Company: CRL
Filing Date: 2025-04-02
Form Type: DEF 14A
Source: 0001104659-25-030908
Chunk: 52

Company: CHARLES RIVER LABORATORIES INTERNATIONAL, INC.
Filing Date: 2025-04-02
Form: DEF 14A
Chunk 52
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 new, $1 billion stock repurchase authorization that our Board approved in August 2024, repurchased $100.7 million in common stock in fiscal year 2024 to balance our capital allocation strategy with a goal to return additional value to shareholders in future years. We believe these actions contributed significantly to our financial performance in fiscal year 2024, which demonstrated stability while facing stabilizing but lower demand trends, and which resulted in: • a 1.9% decrease in revenue; • cash flow relating to operating activities of $734.6 million (an increase of 7.4% from 2023); and • a 97.8% decrease in GAAP diluted earnings per share, due primarily to a non-cash goodwill impairment in our Biologics Solutions reporting unit, and a 3.3% decrease in non-GAAP diluted earnings per share. In addition, we disclosed in our Annual Report on 10-K for fiscal 2024 our intention to repurchase shares in fiscal year 2025 totaling approximately $350 million. Elements of Our Compensation Program/2024 Advisory Vote on Executive Compensation Charles River shareholders provided strong majority support for our named executives’ compensation at our 2024 annual meeting of shareholders (94.9% of shares voted in support of this matter). We attribute this level of support to several long-standing characteristics of our executive compensation program that we believe enhance the performance orientation of the program: • Base Salaries: We have kept base salary increases in line with market rates, averaging 3.1% and, in general annualized merit increases for our executives (excluding promotional increases) are consistent with the average annualized merit increases allotted to our North American workforce. • Annual Cash Incentive Awards: Our Compensation Program includes an annual cash bonus element that closely links a significant portion of executive pay to the achievement of short-term performance targets that are critical to meeting our stated financial objectives for the year. These targets are 43 typically tied to specific financial metrics derived from our fiscal year operating plan. For fiscal year 2024, we did not meet our Revenue and Operating Income goals, which resulted in a bonus payout below target. • Long-Term Equity Incentive Awards, including Performance Share Units: Our officers typically receive three types of equity awards, and where appropriate and applicable, special equity awards (such as with respect to executive transitions): • Performance Share Units (PSUs), which vest on a “cliff basis” after three years, if service and performance requirements are met and which are