Areas of Focus

We help companies address needs in a variety of executive compensation and benefits areas, including:

Savings and Retirement – While 401(k) plans serve an important function for many workers, government-imposed limits on savings and contributions may be too restrictive to fulfill the needs of highly-compensated executives. Nonqualified plans, such as deferred compensation, supplemental executive retirement plans (SERPs) and ERISA-excess plans are free from annual caps. By leveraging the flexibility of these plans, companies can allow deferral of various additional forms of pay, including bonuses, commissions, base and long-term incentives to fill in savings shortfalls.

Flexible Distributions – In addition to savings, nonqualified deferred compensation plans offer a variety of distribution options that can help executives plan for important future expenses. For example, executives can elect to schedule payouts to coincide with college tuition bills or payments on a second home.

Merger and Acquisition Security – We can design plans that offer executives additional security in the case of change in management control of the company, including severance benefits that guard against loss, non-payment of benefits or adverse tax consequences as a result of a severance package.

Incentive Compensation – No longer limited to annual bonuses or stock options, incentive compensation can be an integral part of a strategic plan to help companies motivate key management to reach profitability and corporate revenue targets.

Phantom Equity – For closely-held companies, phantom equity plans provide a flexible way to compete with publicly-traded companies who offer valued key employees a share of the company's success through awards of publicly-traded equity.

Survivor Benefits – Group term life insurance policies can create an excessive tax burden for key executives. At the same time, the needs of executives are often different from those of other employees. For those reasons, alternative and supplemental death benefit programs can offer companies a more cost-effective and responsive solution.

Income Protection – Traditional income continuation long-term disability plans that pay a percentage of base pay in benefits may prove inadequate for executives whose total compensation is made up largely of incentives, bonus, stock options and other forms of contingent income. We design supplemental insured and self-funded disability plans that provide coverage for a wide range of sources of compensation.

Neither Mesirow Financial nor its employees provide tax advice. Securities offered though Mesirow Financial, Inc,. Member NYSE/SIPC.