Average gas last national price year

It's good to be king--especially of a publicly traded company.

Nothing, it seems, can dent a CEO's wallet--not high-profile scandals, accounting fraud, sagging profits or tumbling stock prices. Top executives getting rich on hefty salaries, bonuses, benefits, option grants and incentives is Corporate America's one constant.

In fact, a recent study of 1,019 public companies found the median cash compensation--not including stock options--for CEOs last year rose nearly 17 percent over the 2001 figure, to about $1.2 million. Included in that number is $451,000 in bonus money--a 9 percent increase over 2001, according to the study released in June by Corporate Library, an independent research group. Moreover, long-term incentive payouts nearly doubled to a median of more than $900,000.

Corporate Library said it did not factor in stock options, which include both options taken and exercisable options "in-the-money," into its study because calculating the actual value is difficult and may not be known for years.

Still, the bigger salaries and bonuses in 2002 came in a year when unemployment of rank-and-file workers increased, corporate profits were flat and the S&P 500 sank 23 percent.

"The environment has changed dramatically, so now is the time you'd expect CEOs to lie low," said John Nofsinger, co-author of "Infectious Greed: Restoring Confidence in America's Companies." "Yet they still have the audacity to ask for more pay and large stock-option grants."

CEOs of Louisiana's largest 25 public companies weren't compensated as well as their counterparts across the nation, according to Business Report research. Their median base salary was $500,000 last year and increased by $100,000 when incentives and other cash bonuses were added. The $600,000 combined cash salary is half the national median.

"Two key factors in the amount of a CEO's pay are the size of the company and its industry," said Chip Ryan, an LSU finance professor who studies executive compensation.

"In Louisiana, our public companies are typically much smaller than companies in other states. Also, many of them are concentrated in the oil and gas industry, which isn't one of the highest paying sectors."

Nineteen CEOs on the list did not cash stock options last year, and the only two who did pocketed more than $750,000. That's probably because declining stock prices make options less valuable at the moment, says Ryan. Freeport McMoRan's James R. Moffett, whose company's stock increased 25.3 percent over the fiscal year, collected $3.1 million on stock options.

Glen F. Post III of CenturyTel Inc., which saw a 13.1 percent jump in stock price, made $2.9 million.

Moffett's total compensation for last year, $10 million, doubled his closest peer, Post, who earned $5 million. Not included in Moffett's figure is the $1.3 million he earned as co-chairman of the board for McMoRan Exploration.

Overall, nine Louisiana public company CEOs earned more than $1 million in compensation last year.

While the $1.54 million average total salary of the state's top corporate leaders won't raise eyebrows nationally, corporate watchdogs are fuming at reports the average public company CEO was paid $12 million last year, including options, according to consultants Pearl Meyer & Partners.

Another report estimates the typical CEO earns 400 times the wage of a typical company employee, up from 39 times the average pay in 1970.

Critics of CEO pay have been around for years, but this latest estimate has prompted some heavy-hitting corporate and financial insiders, including William J. McDonald, president of the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, to argue for compensation reform.

McDonald recently said that the vast increases that began in the 1990s were "terribly bad social policy and perhaps even bad morals."

JR BALL covers banking, personal finance, real estate and the business of sports. Reach him at jrball@businessreport.com.