The good times are back – if you’re a CEO.
A typical chief executive at a large U.S. corporation earned a staggering $9 million last year, a new study showed.
Total compensation for CEOs of companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 – including base salary, bonuses, stocks, options and other perks – was 24% higher than in 2009, during the height of the recession.
The Associated Press study, using data from research firm Equilar, analyzed CEO pay packages at 334 companies in the S&P 500 that had the same chief exec in both 2009 and 2010. The median pay value of $9 million last year was the highest since the study began in 2006.
And here’s a heads-up for this fall’s class of college freshmen: Forget finance. The real money was in media and entertainment. Thanks to increasing ad revenue and advances in digital distribution, six of the 10 top-earning CEOs were from those industries.
Topping the overall list was Phillippe Dauman of Viacom, which owns Paramount movie studio, MTV and Nickelodeon. Dauman’s package was worth $85 million. CBS honcho Les Moonves, third on the list, made $57 million; Disney’s Robert Iger (eighth) earned $28 million, and Jeff Bewkes of Time Warner, at No. 10, made $26 million.
The lucrative pay packages reflect the economic recovery that began last year, as the stock market rebounded and company profits swelled. Executive bonuses and stock deals are often tied to company performance.
Overall, CEOs made out better last year than in 2007, when the economy was robust and unemployment was nearly half as much as the current 9% rate. The median pay for CEOs then was $8.4 million; it dropped to $7.6 million in 2008 and fell again in 2009 to $7.2 million.
In case you were wondering: Pay for Joe Lunchpail types grew 3% in 2010, to an average of about $40,500, said The AP – about one-half of 1% of what the typical CEO earned.With News Wire Services
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