Macy’s Inc. is reclaiming over $600,000 in cash bonuses from its executives following an accounting scandal that resulted in inflated pay figures. The department-store company had linked its executives’ bonuses to an earnings metric that was later found to be overstated by approximately $81 million in 2023, as reported in a securities filing released on Tuesday evening.
As of the end of 2024, Macy’s had overpaid its executives by a total of $609,613. The company disclosed that a portion of this amount had already been retrieved, leaving an outstanding $352,093 as of April 1. The company’s compensation committee has committed to recovering the remainder of the misallocated bonuses. The identities of the executives whose bonuses are affected were not disclosed, and a company spokesperson declined to comment further.
Additionally, Macy’s announced on Tuesday the departure of its chief financial officer, appointing Thomas J. Edwards from Capri Holdings Ltd. as his replacement. This decision is part of Macy’s strategy to steer towards sustainable, long-term growth.
According to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regulations, public companies are mandated to reassess and potentially revoke corporate bonuses upon the discovery of accounting errors that alter past profit calculations.
In November, Macy’s postponed an earnings announcement and subsequently issued a lowered profit forecast. This was after an internal investigation revealed that an employee had deliberately concealed over $150 million in delivery costs from the last quarter of 2021 to the third quarter of 2024. The investigation found no evidence of missing cash or unpaid vendors but identified accounting errors and document falsification by the former employee as the source of the issues.
