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- BUSINESS, Page 49Business NotesCOMPENSATIONFire the Messenger
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- Mention the name Graef Crystal in a corporate boardroom, and
- you're likely to hear a collective growl. Crystal, 57, is the
- nation's foremost critic of high executive pay, and for half a
- decade he has been outraging business leaders with his
- high-profile columns describing just how overpaid they are. But
- Crystal is beginning to find it difficult to get his message
- across.
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- Last week, after an intimidating barrage of corporate
- complaints, Financial World magazine abruptly dropped the
- regular column written by the University of California,
- Berkeley, business professor. Eight months earlier, Crystal --
- weary of sideline debates with executives on Time Warner's
- business side about the theoretical value of chairman Steve
- Ross's stock options -- had terminated a four-year relationship
- with FORTUNE.
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- Crystal says advertisers and powerful corporate officials
- had pressured Financial World to kill his column. But magazine
- officials claim Crystal was let go largely as a result of some
- errors he made in evaluating executive pay packages. Whatever
- the reason, Crystal is not giving up. He's now prepared to
- purchase stock in companies he believes send out overweight
- paychecks. That would enable him to haunt proxy meetings and
- demand shareholder votes on compensation.
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