Survey: California CEOs earning bigger slice of company profits
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20060530-1339-ca-ceopay.html1:39 p.m. May 30, 2006
LOS ANGELES – CEO compensation at 100 of California's biggest public companies averaged 6.6 percent of their companies' annual earnings last year, another sign executive pay continues to escalate, a newspaper reported Tuesday.
Twenty-one of the chief executives earned 5 percent or more of their company's profit in 2005, according to a survey compiled by Salary.com for the Los Angeles Times.
For seven of the chief executives, a compensation percentage could not be calculated because their companies lost money, the newspaper reported.
The 100 chief executives surveyed earned a combined $1.32 billion last year, up 20 percent over 2004. Nineteen of the CEOs earned $20 million or more last year, an annual increase of 12 percent, the survey found.
Occidental Petroleum Corp. Chief Executive Ray Irani topped the survey's list in terms of pay, earning $71.6 million in direct compensation last year.