Estée Lauder's Annual Proxy Shows CEO Pay Of $20.6 Million Against $0.50 In Reported Earnings Per Share
The proxy filing also discloses a securities class action settlement that clipped reported operating margin by 0.6 percentage points in fiscal 2026.
Estée Lauder's annual proxy filing, released Wednesday, shows new CEO Stéphane de La Faverie collected $20,585,784 in total compensation for fiscal 2026 — a year in which the beauty company's reported earnings per share came in at $0.50.
What The Proxy Says
The filing lays out a company whose reported financials have deteriorated sharply from their peak. Reported net sales, which reached $17.7 billion in fiscal 2022, came in at $15.0 billion in fiscal 2026. Reported diluted earnings per share swung from $6.55 in fiscal 2022 to a loss in fiscal 2025 before recovering to that $0.50 figure last year.
Reported operating margin tells the same story: it fell from 17.9% in fiscal 2022 to 5.2% in fiscal 2026. The company's adjusted operating margin — which strips out restructuring charges, litigation settlements, and goodwill impairments — came in at 11.2% for the same period, according to the proxy.
The gap between those two figures is partly explained by a securities class action litigation settlement disclosed in the filing. That settlement added a $0.18 per-share charge to fiscal 2026 results and shaved about 0.6 percentage points off reported operating margin — a cost the company excluded from its adjusted numbers.
The proxy also flags a separate, earlier legal matter: a $159 million charge recorded in the first quarter of fiscal 2025 to cover a talcum powder litigation settlement framework. That framework covered agreements with certain plaintiff law firms to resolve more than 200 pending cosmetic talcum powder matters and established a structure for potential future claims through December 31, 2029.
The Pay Gap Shareholders Will Vote On
Shareholders will cast an advisory vote on executive compensation at the company's virtual annual meeting on November 17, 2026. The question before them is whether a $20.6 million pay package for a first-year CEO is appropriate against a backdrop of $0.50 in reported earnings per share and a reported operating margin that has shrunk by more than 12 percentage points over four years.
The company has leaned heavily on adjusted metrics throughout that stretch, presenting a cleaner narrative to investors by removing restructuring charges, impairments, and litigation costs from its headline figures. Whether the compensation committee's rationale holds up to shareholder scrutiny will be tested at the November meeting.
A separate stockholder proposal requesting additional reporting on plastic packaging is also on the ballot. The board recommends voting against it — a position that is likely to draw attention from shareholders focused on environmental, social, and governance criteria.
EL shares were trading at $93.82, down 0.58%, in Wednesday trading, giving the company a market capitalization of $34.1 billion.
The advisory pay vote and the board-opposed plastics proposal both come to a head at the November 17 virtual annual meeting.
Sources
- Estee Lauder Cos. — DEF 14A (2026-09-30) — SEC EDGAR
