Progress Energy 2009 Annual Report Download - page 177

Progress Energy Proxy Statement
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1 Personal travel on the Company’s aircraft in the event of a family emergency or similar situation is permitted with
the approval of the Chief Executive Officer. Executives’ spouses may travel on the Company’s aircraft to accompany the
executives to “business-related” events executives’ spouses are requested to attend. For 2009, the named executive officers whose
perquisites included spousal travel on corporate aircraft for business purposes were Messrs. Lyash and Yates.
2 Including home use of Company-owned computer.
The Committee believes that the perquisites we provide to our executives are reasonable, competitive
and consistent with our overall executive compensation program in that they help us attract and retain skilled and
qualified executives. We believe that these benefits generally allow our executives to work more efficiently and,
in the case of the tax and financial planning services, help them to optimize the value received from all of the
compensation and benefits programs offered. The costs of these benefits constitute only a small percentage of each
named executive officer’s total compensation.
8. OTHER BROAD-BASED BENEFITS
The named executive officers receive our general corporate benefits provided to all of our regular, full-time,
nonbargaining employees. These broad-based benefits include the following:
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compensation);
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cash balance formula to accrue benefits; and
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long-term disability coverage.
9. DEFERRED COMPENSATION
We sponsor the Management Deferred Compensation Plan (the “MDCP”), an unfunded, deferred
compensation arrangement. The plan is designed to provide executives with tax deferral options, in addition to those
available under the existing qualified plans. An executive may elect to defer, on a pre-tax basis, payment of up to
50% of his or her salary for a minimum of five years or until his or her date of retirement. As a make-up for the
401(k) statutory compensation limits, executives receive deferred compensation credits of 6% of their base salary
over the Internal Revenue Code statutory compensation limit on 401(k) retirement plans. The Committee views the
matching feature as a restoration benefit designed to restore the matching contribution the executive would have
received under the 401(k) retirement plan in the absence of the Internal Revenue Service compensation limits. These
Company matching allocations are allocated to an account that will be deemed initially to be invested in shares of
a stable value fund within the MDCP. Each executive may reallocate his or her deferred compensation among the
other available deemed investment funds that mirror those options available under the 401(k) plan.
Executives can elect to defer up to 100% of their MICP and/or performance share awards. The deferral
option is provided as an additional benefit to executive officers to provide flexibility in the receipt of compensation.
Historically, all deferred awards were deemed to be invested in performance units, generally equivalent to shares
of the Company’s common stock and received a 15% discount to the Company’s then-current common stock price.
Beginning January 1, 2009, the discount feature was eliminated and deferred awards may be allocated among
investment options that mirror the Company’s 401(k) Plan.