Golfing CEOs with top pay bad for company performance

CEOs with big salaries and a passion for golf may soon find their companies in the rough, studies show.

CEOs that get paid more have worse stock returns over a three year period than their less well paid contemparies, a study from Cambridge University shows.

And the stock return seems to be getting worse the bigger their pay check .

Michael J, Cooper, Huseyin Gulen and Raghavendra P. Rau who wrote the study explains: “As an example, firms that pay their CEOs in the top ten per cent of excess pay earn negative abnormal returns over the next three years of approximately minus eight per cent.” One reason to why these CEOs do worse is because they may tend to be more over-confident than their less-paid peers.