When It Pays to Lose Your Job

It may be in vogue to diss how much chief executives make, but don't think for a minute that such compensation is going to disappear.

And that goes even when the CEOs at Fortune 250 companies walk out the door. More than 71 percent of such CEOs got an average $22.2 million severance package in fiscal year 2007, according to a study [for sale] released today by Equilar, an information service specializing in executive compensation.

These were the executives who were axed "without cause" or left the company for "good reason."

And the variety of compensation seems endless: cash (average $7.9 million), pro-rated bonus payments, accelerated equity awards (average $18.9 million), extra credits toward pension, and deferred compensation accounts.

Plus, the terminated CEOs got continued healthcare coverage, outplacement services, office use, and secretarial services.

Did we mention the tax gross-ups?

If the chief executive was unlucky enough to head a company that was taken over, their average severance package was more than $32 million -- with all the cash and other nifty perks of their counterparts who were terminated, according to the Equilar study.

Any executive who had a lot of company stock -- and held onto it past last fall --might be somewhat out of luck, however.

Oh, and if the company is receiving TARP money and faces a public clamor to cut its CEO compensation to a scant $500,000, Equilar calculated, in a different study also released today, that company salary setters would be working from an average CEO compensation figure of $3.6 million. And that was in fiscal 2007.

The average equity award was $2.2 million, and that may have dipped in value, but the average cash bonus was $797,711 then and likely even higher in fiscal 2008. Equilar combs through public filings for its figures, and they'll be updated for fiscal 2008.

by Elizabeth Olson