The Too Much Executive Pay Scorecard

This Too Much chart compares the various CEO pay reports released in 2006. These cover the 2005 corporate fiscal year. For pay reports on CEO compensation in 2007, please check our current top executive pay scorecard. For earlier comparisons, see our Executive Pay Scorecards for pay in 2004 and 2006.

Source

Methodology

Median CEO pay

Annual increase

Worth noting

The Corporate Library
March 20, 2006

A preliminary study. Covers 554 large U.S. corporations that had filed their required pay data through March 13, 2006.

$5.7 million

11.29%

Median weekly earnings for full-time workers ended 2005 up 1.9 percent, not enough to match the year's 3.8 percent inflation.

New York Times
April 9, 2006

Survey by Pearl Meyer & Partners covers 200 major companies that had filed data by March 31. Includes salary, bonus, restricted stock, and other long-term incentives. Does not include profits on options exercised in 2005. Does include value of new option grants.

$8.4 million

(Average pay:
$11.3 million)

10.3%

(Average
up 27%)

Top CEO on the list: Occidental Petroleum CEO Ray Urani took home $63 million in total pay. He also realized an additional $37.6 million in stock option profits.

USA Today
April 10, 2006

Survey by eComp Data Services covers 240 major companies that had filed their required pay stats through March 27. Pay figures include salary, bonus, incentives, stock, stock-option gains, and potential returns from fresh option grants.

$17.9 million

25%

The biggest of the year's CEO pay winners: Capital One Financial's Richard Fairbank. His $280.1 million “exceeded the annual profits of more than 550 Fortune 1000 companies.”

Wall Street Journal
April 10, 2006

Survey by Mercer HumanResource Consulting covers 350 large companies. Includes salary, bonuses, value of restricted stock at grant, gains from stock-option exercises, and other long-term incentives.

$6.1 million

15.8%

On top of 2005 earnings, the typical CEO in the Wall Street Journal survey is sitting on another $10.2 million in unrealized gains from previously awarded stock options.

Bloomberg News
May 3, 2006

Survey by pay analyst Graef Crystal, based on data from Equilar, covers 492 CEOs at firms worth $3 billion or more. Includes salary, bonus, the value of options granted during 2005, the value of shares awarded during 2005, long-term incentive payouts, and miscellaneous other pay.

$6 million

11%

Five of the 16 highest-paid CEOs owed their fortunes to the oil industry. These five oil “roughnecks of remuneration,” charges Crystal, raked in a collective 361 percent more in pay than legitimate market factors would warrant.

Forbes
May 8, 2006

Survey by Hemscott covers 500 largest companies “as measured by a composite ranking of sales, long-term incentive payouts, profits, assets, and market value.” Includes salary and bonuses, grants of restricted stock that have vested, perks, and gains from option exercises.

$10.9 million
(average)

6%
(average)

Forbes also ranks CEOs by their cumulative pay over the last five years. Leading the pack: Oracle CEO Larry Ellison with over $868.9 million. A $80,000-a-year software engineer would have to work over 10,000 years to bring home as much as Ellison did in five.

The Corporate Library
October 4, 2006

Final annual survey covers CEO pay at 1,703 public companies. Pay includes salary, bonus, perks, exercised stock options, and other long-term incentive compensation.

$7 million
(median for CEOs of S&P 500 companies)

15.98%

Nine CEOs pulled in over $100 million, topped by the $295 million for IAC/InterActive CEO Barry Diller, who pocketed another $173 million from Expedia, an IAC/Interactive spinoff that Diller also ran.

The Conference Board
October 19, 2006

Survey compiled by Salary.com covers 3,075 publicly traded firms in 14 major industrial sectors. Total compensation includes “salary, bonus, and the annualized value of the major long-term executive incentives.” The survey calculates the value of stock options as “30 percent of the 2005 grant size (number of shares granted multiplied by the stock market price on the date of grant).”

Construction, $2,604,000
Financial services, $2,396,000
Utilities,
$2,057,000
Insurance,
$1,792,000
Energy,
$1,580,000
Communications, $1,518,000
Telecom,
$1,399,000
Diversified services, $1,265,000
Retail,
$1,250,000
Manufacturing, $1,230,000
Wholesale,
$1,136,000
Transportation, $1,100,000
Commercial banking, $975,000
Computer services, $848,000

37.6%

25.0%

15.3%

14.9%

14.7%

12.8%

11.3%

10.8%

10.5%

10.4%

8.0%

7.8%

7.6%

6.3%

The median CEO in financial services received 249 percent of salary in bonus, 247 percent of salary in restricted stock, 141 percent of salary in long-term performance payments, and 312 percent of salary in new stock option grants.

Regional CEO Pay Reports

Source

Methodology

Median
CEO pay

Annual increase

Worth noting

Dallas Morning News
May 6, 2006

Survey by Longnecker & Associates, a Houston firm, covers the pay of 100 top CEOs in Dallas-Fort Worth. Pay includes “base salary, cash bonuses, and long-term incentives such as stock options and restricted stock.”

- 12.6%
(average)

The average decrease reflects a sharp drop in the value of new stock options awarded in 2005. Actual cash payments to Dallas-Fort Worth execs jumped 17 percent. The top 10 execs averaged $19.1 million in total pay.

Rocky Mountain News
May 6, 2006

Survey covers 262 executives, both CEOs and other high-ranking execs, at the 50 most valuable publicly traded companies in Colorado. Total pay includes salary, bonuses, perks, restricted stock awards, and profits realized from stock option awards, but not “the estimated value of new stock option grants.”

$5.34 million (for top 50 executives identified)
$1.21 million (for total 262-exec sample)

40% for top 50, 59% for full sample

Colorado execs cleared $244 million exercising options in 2005 and, at year's end, “still had $916 million in options left.” The execs surveyed took in 28.3 million new options in 2005. But the real hikes came in grants of restricted stock, up more than double the 2004 total.

Chicago Sun-Times
May 8, 2006

Survey covers CEO pay at 20 large Illinois publicly traded companies. Pay includes salary, cash bonuses, stock options, and grants of restricted stock.

$9.7 million
(average)

- 8%
(average)

Dragging the average down: a 25.3 percent drop in total pay for Allstate CEO Ed Liddy. His take-home fell to $9.04 million after hurricane payouts squeezed the Allstate bottom line.

Atlanta Business
Chronicle
May 12, 2006

Survey by Mercer covers CEO pay at Atlanta's 41 largest publicly traded companies. “Expected” direct compensation includes salaries, bonuses, and “long-term incentives awarded in 2005.”

$3.06 million

15.1%

Sitting on top the Atlanta list: Home Depot CEO Robert Nardelli, with $38.1 million, a 5.9 percent increase over his previous year's pay. In 2005, Home Depot shareholders saw a minus 4.3 percent return.

Buffalo News
May 21, 2006

Survey covers the pay of 52 top execs from companies in greater Buffalo. Pay includes salary, bonuses, perks, restricted stock grants, and “the value of options granted in previous years that were exercised last year,” but not the value of new options received.

$768,861

23%

Only two Buffalo area execs made over the national CEO median last year. But the area's execs did just fine compared to local Erie County workers. Exec pay in western New York jumped six times faster than the 3.9 gain in local worker average weekly earnings.

San Francisco Chronicle
May 21, 2006

Survey by Equilar, a San Mateo research firm, covers the pay for 1,036 execs at 200 Bay Area companies. Pay includes the value of new options but not the profits from cashing out previously awarded options.

$1.3 million

-18%

CEO pay can be habit-forming. Wells Fargo chief executive Richard Kovacevich received a $7 million bonus last year, his fourth consecutive $7 million annual bonus. His total take-home for 2005: $20.2 million.

San Jose Mercury News
May 21, 2006

$3.53 million
(average)

27%
(average)

The number of Silicon Valley execs taking home at least $10 million jumped to 57 in 2005, up from 43 in 2004. Yahoo CEO Terry Semel has raked in nearly $429 million in option gains since 2001.

Los Angeles Times
May 30, 2006

Survey by Salary.com covers the pay of CEOs at California's 100 largest publicly traded companies. Pay does not include gains CEOs realized from cashing out options received before 2005, but does include a value for new options the execs received last year.

$13.2 million
(average)

20%
(average)

Nineteen California CEOs took home at least $20 million in 2005, seven more than in 2004. Twenty-one of California's top execs took home pay packages that equaled at least 5 percent of their total company earnings for the year.

St. Paul Pioneer Press
June 4, 2006

Survey covers pay for top executives at Minnesota's 100 largest public companies. Pay includes salary, bonus, grants of restricted stock, and profits cleared cashing out options granted in previous years.

$4.4 million
(average)

8%
(average)

Cost of personal travel on U.S. Bancorp corporate jets by CEO Jerry Grundhofer: $226,727. His total compensation: $6.4 million, plus another $11.6 million in new stock options.

Des Moines Sunday Register
June 4, 2006

Survey covers pay “for top executives at the 20 largest Iowa-based publicly traded companies.” Pay includes “salary, bonus, long-term cash, and cash-value stock awards,” but not stock options.

$1.85 million
(average)

31.25%
(average)

In 2005, top executive pay increased nearly eight times the 4 percent hike in average Iowa per capita income. The state's highest-paid CEO: Barry Griswell of the Principal Financial Group, with $7.4 million in take-home.

Philadelphia Business Journal
June 5, 2006

Survey by Mercer Human Resource Consulting covers top execs at the Philadelphia region's 100 largest publicly traded companies. Pay includes “salary, bonus, long-term incentives (restricted stock awards, incentive-plan payouts), and profits from stock options and/or stock appreciation during the year.”

(Three Philly area execs to made over $20 million in 2005, 10 more than $10 million)

6%
(average)

Running a giant health insurer continues to be good for a CEO's financial health. Cigna CEO H. Edward Hanway “netted $26.1 million in total compensation,” enough to earn him third place in the Philly CEO pay 2005 rankings, despite a near 10 percent decline in his company's share price.

San Diego Union Tribune
June 11, 2006

Survey covers execs 120 San Diego area publicly traded companies. Pay includes salary, bonuses, stock options, restricted stock, “and perks such as car allowances and financial planning services.”

$1.08 million
(average for top five execs at the 120 companies surveyed):
$1.47 million
(average for CEOs only)

22%
(average for top five execs);
42%
(average for CEOs)

At Qualcom, chair Irwin Jacobs pulled in $78.4 million and his son, CEO Paul Jacobs, $31 million. Overall, the number of San Diego execs making at least $1 million jumped to 111, from 90 in 2004. San Diego workers averaged $41,375 last year, up 3.9 percent over 2004.

Baltimore Sun
June 18, 2006

Survey by Salary.com covers 100 publicly traded companies with headquarters in Maryland. Pay includes salary, bonus, other cash compensation, stock grants, and the value of new options awarded. Not included: profits from exercised stock options.

[Two Maryland top execs made at least $40 million, seven more at least $10 million, 41 more over $1 million, not counting gains from exercised stock options.]

Constellation Energy CEO Mayo Shattuck III took home $9.3 million in 2005, plus a “$43.5 million paper profit” exercising options from previous years. Also in 2005: Constellation's BGE utility proposed a 72 percent consumer rate hike.

Chicago Tribune
July 2, 2006

Survey covers pay for the Chicago area's top 100 CEOs. Pay includes “salary, bonus, other cash compensation, stock grants, and the estimated value of stock options granted.”

$4.47 million

0.4%

At the top: Boeing CEO W. James McNerney Jr., the former 3M CEO who came to Boeing a year ago with a signing package that reimbursed him for the “incentive” pay he would have been eligible to receive at 3M. McNerney's total pay: $28.9 million.

Washington Post
July 10, 2006

Survey covers 708 execs at 157 D.C.-area firms. Pay includes salary, bonus, the value of option grants, grants of restricted stock and other long-term compensation, and perks.

$6.4 million
(top 100)

$642,543
(next 600)

21.2%
(top 100)

-3.9%
(next 600)

Overall pay for the 708 executives surveyed amounted to $1.4 billion, “more than the budget of the D.C. public schools.”

Sectoral CEO Pay Reports

Source

Methodology

Median
CEO pay

Annual increase

Worth noting

Electronic Business
June 1, 2006

Survey covers the 50 highest-paid execs at "public companies that derived a majority of their total revenue from the design, manufacture or sale of semiconductors, related components and systems." Pay includes salary, bonuses, gains realized from stock options exercised, and various perks. Not included: restricted stock awards.

$10.9 million
(average)

The San Diego-based Qualcom posted four execs on the top 50 list, led by Irwin Mark Jacobs, who stepped down as CEO halfway through 2005, with $78.5 million. His successor as CEO, Paul Jacobs, tallied $31.4 million. Steven Altman went home with another $9.138 million, just slightly more than Sanjay Jha's $9,128 million.

Want to keep up-to-date on CEO pay trends?
Just sign up here for the free weekly Too Much newsletter.