Item 8.01 Other Events
AGCO Reinforces Strategic Direction with Leadership Succession and Governance Updates
Dear Fellow AGCO Stockholders:
AGCO is committed to sound corporate governance that is in the best interests of all of our stockholders and that aligns with our goal of long-term value creation. We currently are conducting a proactive and extensive engagement cycle with our stockholders to understand what our investors view as most important with respect to these issues. To that end, the AGCO Board of Directors is in the process of making several governance and compensation updates.
As previously announced, AGCO's current Chairman, President and CEO,
In connection with this critical leadership transition, and in light of several recent and planned director retirements, the Board has been conducting a holistic review of AGCO's governance and compensation practices. For many years, the Governance Committee and Board have reviewed the Board's leadership structure annually, and this year there has been particularly robust and thoughtful consideration of the go-forward leadership structure. The Board is focused on ensuring strong independent oversight, and to that end, has been considering stockholder feedback on a number of changes to our Board leadership and governance practices.
In
•AppointedMike Arnold as its new Lead Independent Director, effectiveJanuary 1, 2021 •Enhanced the already robust duties of the Lead Independent Director role •Appointed three new Committee chairs, also effectiveJanuary 1, 2021 :Sondra Barbour for the Audit Committee,George Minnich for theFinance Committee , andMike Arnold for the Governance Committee •Adopted five-year term limits for Board leadership positions, including the Lead Independent Director position and three independent Committee Chairs •Updated AGCO's Hedging and Pledging Policy
The holistic review is ongoing and likely will lead to other changes in 2021.
The Board has been actively focused on the rotation of key Board leadership roles, having started this process at the 2020 Annual Meeting with the appointment of new chairs of the Compensation and Finance Committees.
Beyond its focus on Board leadership roles, the Board has been and remains
actively focused on its overall composition. AGCO appointed new directors in
2019 and in 2020, while one director retired at our 2020 Annual Meeting. Five
additional directors will retire over the next two years, and we have been
planning for their succession as well. The Governance Committee is in the late
stages of the interview process with several director candidates. We are
prioritizing candidates with experience in digital and autonomous technology,
agriculture, heavy equipment and strong channel management, as well as those
with international experience. As a result of our focused Board refreshment
efforts, AGCO's average Board tenure is expected to be less than six years by
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Also in connection with our CEO transition, and in consideration of stockholder feedback and recent Say-on-Pay vote results, the Compensation Committee has redesigned the executive compensation program for implementation in 2021. The program includes a new approach to ensure pay for performance while addressing industry cycles, a relative TSR performance component, as well as new performance metrics for both the annual and long-term incentives.
With respect to all of the Board and governance changes that currently are underway at AGCO, our primary goal is to act in the best interests of all our stockholders, including TAFE and our unaffiliated stockholders. TAFE has commercial relationships with AGCO and also has a representative serving on the AGCO Board. It should be understood that, as in any business partnership, our interests will not always be aligned.
We appreciate the time our stockholders have taken to discuss these topics with us over the past several months, and we look forward to continuing this dialogue with them.
Sincerely,
The Independent Directors of AGCO's Board of Directors
Item 9.01. Financial Statements and Exhibits. (d) Exhibits Exhibit No. Description 104 Cover Page Interactive Data File - the cover page from this Current Report on Form 8-K is formatted in Inline XBRL.
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