Huge numbers aren't new for Ford chief
Featured: Alan Mulally, CEO, Ford Motor
Americans on tight budgets held off buying new wheels once again last year, driving the average age of cars and light trucks on the road to 10.8 years, a record high.
But while customers pinched pennies, one of the major car companies showed little restraint when it came to CEO pay.
Ford Motor (F) chief Alan Mulally got a monster 2011 pay package worth $29.5 million. That's not a record, but it's pretty high by several measures:
For coupling such vast pay with such poor stock performance, I'm making Mulally my latest "One-Percenter of the Week."
"It's getting harder and harder to justify the big salary and big stock options he gets when the stock isn't performing," said Gary Bradshaw of Hodges Capital Management, which owns Ford stock, in published reports.
Mulally's 2011 monster pay package also seems remarkable in light of the mega-grant of stock options he got in March 2009, when Ford stock was trading below $2 a share. With Ford stock now trading around $12.50, that mega-grant of 5 million options -- much larger than normal -- is currently worth more than $52 million. (See "6 CEOs who won the options lottery" for more.)
That takes his total 2009 pay up to $65 million, when you include salary, stock grants and perks. Mulally also has $58 million worth of restricted stock from previous grants due to vest over the next four years, points out Paul Hodgson, an executive pay expert at GMI. Given the huge value of all these grants, "it seems to me there wasn't any point of awarding him any more," says Hodgson.
Nevertheless, fresh stock and options grants made up the lion's share of Mulally's 2011 pay. Last year, he received $21.4 million in stock and options awards. He also got a $2 million in salary, $1.82 million in discretionary bonus, a $3.6 million incentive bonus and $612,500 in perks, for a total of $29.5 million.
Read more here One-Percenter of the Week - income & wealth - MSN Money
Featured: Alan Mulally, CEO, Ford Motor
Americans on tight budgets held off buying new wheels once again last year, driving the average age of cars and light trucks on the road to 10.8 years, a record high.
But while customers pinched pennies, one of the major car companies showed little restraint when it came to CEO pay.
Ford Motor (F) chief Alan Mulally got a monster 2011 pay package worth $29.5 million. That's not a record, but it's pretty high by several measures:
- His pay was three times the $9.6 million average 2011 pay for CEOs of companies on the Standard & Poor's 500 Index ($INX), as tallied so far by USA Today and GMI, an independent corporate governance researcher.
- His pay was so high that about $5.17 of the price of each car or light truck sold by Ford last year went to cover Mulally's pay, on average. That figure would have averaged $1.68 per vehicle had Mulally gotten pay in line with the average at S&P 500 companies.
- Mulally got that monster pay even though Ford stock was down a whopping 36.8% for the year, compared with a flat performance for the S&P 500 -- which had to leave Ford shareholders wondering what they got for all that pay.
For coupling such vast pay with such poor stock performance, I'm making Mulally my latest "One-Percenter of the Week."
"It's getting harder and harder to justify the big salary and big stock options he gets when the stock isn't performing," said Gary Bradshaw of Hodges Capital Management, which owns Ford stock, in published reports.
Mulally's 2011 monster pay package also seems remarkable in light of the mega-grant of stock options he got in March 2009, when Ford stock was trading below $2 a share. With Ford stock now trading around $12.50, that mega-grant of 5 million options -- much larger than normal -- is currently worth more than $52 million. (See "6 CEOs who won the options lottery" for more.)
That takes his total 2009 pay up to $65 million, when you include salary, stock grants and perks. Mulally also has $58 million worth of restricted stock from previous grants due to vest over the next four years, points out Paul Hodgson, an executive pay expert at GMI. Given the huge value of all these grants, "it seems to me there wasn't any point of awarding him any more," says Hodgson.
Nevertheless, fresh stock and options grants made up the lion's share of Mulally's 2011 pay. Last year, he received $21.4 million in stock and options awards. He also got a $2 million in salary, $1.82 million in discretionary bonus, a $3.6 million incentive bonus and $612,500 in perks, for a total of $29.5 million.
Read more here One-Percenter of the Week - income & wealth - MSN Money
