Company: WSBC
Filing Date: 2025-03-14
Form Type: DEF 14A
Source: 0000950170-25-039418
Chunk: 27

Company: WESBANCO INC
Filing Date: 2025-03-14
Form: DEF 14A
Chunk 27
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. Cowden also recommended increasing award opportunities for equity grants, but changing the weighting more towards performance based awards.

As a follow up to the May report, the Compensation Committee requested specific recommendations from Cowden to be presented to the Compensation Committee at its November 15, 2023, meeting. Accordingly, at that meeting, Cowden submitted a memo dated November 7, 2023, outlining methods for potentially closing the gap in total compensation for the named executive officers as compared to their 2023 Peer Group.

The Cowden report included specific areas for consideration including: (i) adopting target percentiles for each position within the named executive officers considering factors such as industry experience, position experience and other factors; (ii) considering both merit increases and market adjustments (compared to the 2023 Peer Group) for adjusting base compensation; (iii) lowering the threshold level for incentive compensation; and (iv) adjustments to target and maximum to reflect other 2023 Peer Group practices, along with other considerations for equity awards such as targeting more performance based grants and adjusting payment periods on the total shareholder return grants.

Based on the information provided in the May and November reports by Cowden, the Committee felt that any gaps in total compensation to peer group averages also be compared to peer group total shareholder return for future reports in a manner similar to the Pay Versus Performance format noted on page53. The Committee also requested that Cowden provide further guidance on compensation trends and recommendations for consideration at its next meeting. In selecting Cowden for the 2024 update, the Committee confirmed its determination that Cowden is independent and that there are no conflicts of interest with respect to the work applicable for review.

Cowden provided additional recommendations to the Compensation Committee at its subsequent meeting on February 21, 2024. Cowden provided the following chart depicting the gap in both base compensation and total compensation:

|                                                                                                                             |                                                                 CEO |                                                                 CFO |                                                                Chief Banking Officer |                                                                           Sr VP Risk |                                                                          Sr EVP - HR |
| Industry Experience                                                                                                         |                                                                 25+ |                                                                 20+ |                                                                                  36+ |                                                                                  35+ |                                                                                  35+ |
| Position Experience – WesBanco                                                                                              |                                                                   1 |                                                                  15 |                                                                                  30+ |                                                                                  25+ |                                                                                  25+ |
| Position Average – Peer Group for CEO and CFO and Industry Average for others                                               |                                                                  17 |                                                                   8 |                                                                                  15+ |                                                                                  10+ |                                                                                  10+ |
| Base Compensation