Rest Easy. C.E.O. Pay Is Holding Up

Things may not be hunky-dory for companies or the investors who own them, but chief executive compensation is holding fast.

Indeed, according to the compensation consultants at Equilar, median C.E.O. pay rose by 1.3 percent, to a still comfortable $8,828,589, last year.

Equilar, based in Redwood Shores, California, came up with those figures by reviewing the proxy statements of 233 members of the S&P 500-stock index.

In the prior two year period — 2005 to 2006 — median C.E.O. compensation increased significantly more: 6 percent. But Equilar said that study, of 194 S&P 500 chief executives, was similar but not identical to its latest one.

The slowing in growth of median chief executive pay levels, the benchmarking firm found in its latest study, is due to fewer annual performance-based bonuses and stock option awards.

In 2007, the chief executives studied received a median aggregate bonus of $1.83 million, down 4.9 percent from the 2006 median of $1.93 million. Also, the prevalence of bonus compensation fell from 96.6 percent in 2006 to 88.4 percent last year. As a result, the study concluded that total bonus compensation for all such chief executives fell by 4.7 percent from 2006 to 2007.

The value of options awards also slid somewhat — by 0.7 percent — from $2.29 million to $2.27 million from 2006 to 2007, Equilar found. And such awards were given less often, falling from 76.4 percent in 2006 to 71.2 percent the following year.

by Elizabeth Olson

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