In a sign of its dissatisfaction with the direction of the struggling company, the board of J.C. Penney gave its chief executive, Ron Johnson, a pay cut of almost 97 percent for 2012, to $1.9 million, according to a regulatory filing yesterday, the New York Times reported today. In addition, not a single top company executive received a cash bonus for the year. Since Johnson arrived in late 2011, J.C. Penney has wrestled with one problem after another. For fiscal 2012, J.C. Penney lost more than $4 billion in sales as traffic declined. Its stock now trades at $14.55, less than half of its price when Johnson’s appointment was announced in June 2011. It had $13 billion in sales for fiscal 2012, well below its competitors Macy’s and Kohl's.
