OT- "I feel your pain !"
I will volunteer to take up a collection for these poor unfortunates. Please send your pennies and worthless stock certificates to Zippy. I will send you a worthless IRS charitable contribution receipt in return.
Reuters
Eight-digit salary club to drop members
Thursday January 16, 1:32 pm ET
By Daniel Sorid
NEW YORK, Jan 16 (Reuters) - The exclusive club of executives who rake in more than $10 million a year in salary and bonus is about to kick out a few members -- as some corporate leaders saw their pay and bonuses drop in 2002.
Several executives who took home a bundle in 2001 -- including Apple Computer's Steven Jobs and the chief of Tyco International's health-care unit -- could lose their club membership with their pay dropping in 2002.
According to a study done for Reuters by compensation analysis firm Equilar, 17 executives earned more than $10 million in combined salary and bonus in 2001, the latest year for which figures are available.
The analysis, which excludes forms of long-term pay such as stock options, used information reported by companies in annual shareholder letters known as proxy statements. Companies operating under a calendar year ended last month will be filing proxies with details on 2002 pay, starting in a few weeks.
While the list of best-paid executives may change, calls for reform of executive compensation in general are not likely to subside. A string of scandals documenting corporate largesse toward top executives -- sometimes at the expense of shareholders -- has strengthened the movement to reign in pay.
AIR JOBS
Topping 2001's list was Apple Computer's (NasdaqNM:AAPL - News) Jobs, who received a "special executive bonus" of $43.5 million in the form of an aircraft. For 2002, when Apple's stock dropped about 37 percent, Jobs' cash compensation could be as low as one dollar, the company has indicated in regulatory filings.
Ranking seventh on the list in 2001 with a $12.5 million package was Richard Meelia, the head of the healthcare unit of conglomerate Tyco International. (NYSE:TYC - News)
The new leadership of Tyco, whose former chief Dennis Kozlowski made headlines for company-paid extravagances such as a $15,000 umbrella stand, distanced itself from Meelia's 2001 pay package in a statement to Reuters. The company said compensation will be capped in 2003, keeping the heads of operating units "more in line" with others in the industry.
It would take a significant drop to bring Meelia's pay in line with that of other comparable company executives. Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ - News), the health-care behemoth, paid its chief executive only $3.1 million in salary and bonus in 2001. The pay differential came even as Johnson & Johnson stock withstood market declines to jump more than 10 percent.
Another executive whose salary is likely to shrink is Lawrence Lasser, the head of investment management company Putnam Investments LLC, a unit of Marsh & McLennan Companies Inc. (NYSE:MMC - News)
Lasser earned $18 million in salary and bonus in 2001, far more than the $3.7 million earned by the parent company's chief executive. Marsh & McLennan said in a statement that Lasser's pay package is expected to drop in 2002 given Putnam's weaker performance.
Lasser's bonuses have long been the topic of conversation in the mutual fund industry. Lasser received $1 million as a base salary in 1999, 2000 and 2001. But his bonus fluctuated wildly, from $26 million in 1999 to $33 million in 2000 to $17 million for 2001.
TOMMY'S TAKE
Executive pay was in the spotlight last year when perks to former General Electric (NYSE:GE - News) Chief Executive Jack Welch were disclosed in divorce-court papers. The documents revealed a deal that provided Welch with flowers, wine and laundry services in a GE-owned apartment in Manhattan. He later renounced more than $2 million in such perks.
Executive compensation analysts said pay to chief executives dropped in 2001 -- for the first time in around a decade. Still, a significant number of executives are unlikely to give up their spot on the top-earners list.
Fashion mogul Tommy Hilfiger, the honorary chairman of the company bearing his name, took in $22.4 million in the fiscal year ended March 2002. His pay is determined in part on the sales of Tommy Hilfiger U.S.A., a company subsidiary.
Analysts expect the company as a whole to have revenues of $1.85 billion in the current year, about flat from a year ago, suggesting his pay should remain relatively high.
Joel Horowitz, Tommy Hilfiger Corp.'s (NYSE:TOM - News) chief executive, also made the list of best paid executives with a package of $10.7 million. Horowitz's bonus is pegged to company operating profit, which on a per share basis is expected to slip to $1.24 from $1.45 last year, according to market researcher Multex.
The best-paid list also included blue-chip brass, including Sanford Weill of Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C - News) and three executives of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE:GS - News). General Electric's Jack Welch, as well as Mel Karmazin and Sumner Redstone of media company Viacom Inc. (NYSE:VIAb - News)
Recent efforts to strengthen boards of directors could push executive salaries down, but such an impact is unlikely on a broad scale for two or three years, said Paul Hodgson, senior research associate at corporate governance group The Corporate Library.
"It's going to take an extremely altruistic CEO to say, in the light of some of the things that have been happening, 'We should scale back on the award of stock options that you gave me in January, or we should lower the level of annual bonus," Hodgson said.
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