Oracle Corp.’s Larry Ellison was the highest-paid US chief executive last year with total compensation of $192 million, a survey by an independent corporate governance group found.
Ellison, founder of the Silicon Valley business software giant, received a base salary of one million dollars, with the bulk of the rest coming from stock options worth an estimated $181 million.
All but three of the top 30 paid CEOs in the annual survey by the Portland, ME-based Corporate Library owed their ranking almost entirely to profits from stock options.
No. 2 on the list was Barry Diller, CEO of IAC/InterActive, which has since split into five entities. Diller got $184 million, much of it also from stock options that overshadowed his base salary of $500,000.
The study notes that Diller appears on the top 10 “with something approaching monotonous regularity, despite returns to shareholders that are less than impressive, particularly when compared to peers.”
And that was not his only compensation. As chairman of spun-off Expedia, he also exercised options there for a profit of more than $250 million. In sum, he earned $437 million in 2007.
“Expedia’s returns to shareholders were even more disappointing than IAC’s,” the study noted.
While some highly compensated CEOS have successfully built shareholder value, the study found, others have not - with six CEOs from financial services companies in the top 30.
No. 3 on the list, for instance, was Angelo R. Mozilo of now-defunct Countrywide Financial Corporation. Although Mozilo received no bonus in 2007, the profits on stock options of more than $120 million accounted for most of his $124.7 million compensation.
Other financial services CEOs in the top 30 included Goldman Sachs’ Lloyd Blankfein at No. 9 with $76.7 million; Capital One Financial’s Richard D. Fairbank at No. 11 with $73.2 million and Richard Fuld of failed Lehman Brothers at No. 13 with $71.9 million.
Margaret C. Whitman, who stepped down as the CEO of eBay this year, with $120 million – including $116 in stock options – was No. 4 on the list.
Overall, the survey found a median pay increase of 7.5 percent in 2007, representing the lowest rate of increase in six years.
The sharpest pay increase went to Richard Fairbank, CEO of the bank Capital One Financial, whose total compensation went up 46,574% last year.
But the study found significant declines as well, with 25 CEOs seeing their pay packages fall by 90% or more. The hardest hit were executives of retail business and building companies.
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