Omnicom's John Wren Got $25 Mil. Stock Bonus Days After 3,500 Layoffs

(MoneyWatch)  Omnicom gave CEO John Wren 1 million stock options as a Christmas present just 13 days after he laid off 3,500 employees at his agencies.

The options have a strike price of $25.48. The options have a face value of $25.4 million. The stock can only be sold according to a staggered timetable, and Wren has to buy it first. OMC is currently trading at $26.14, meaning that the options are in-the-money.

The award came on top of his total annual compensation of $10.3 million, and his other 7,000,000 shares that the company has previously given him. The bonus came after a year in which OMC's stock price collapsed by 50 percent, from a high of around $50, and Wren told investors in his Q3 conference call that he had failed to anticpiate the credit crisis. OMC was also downgraded by Deutsche Bank.

Wren has until 2018 to cash in his shares. BNET would love to hear comments from Omnicom agency employees on Wren's Xmas bonus. You need to register to comment, but it's easy and yes, you can use a made-up name. How did your year-end bonus compare to your boss's?

Here's a sampling of other agency CEO packages. These numbers do not include year-end bonuses:

• Omnicom's John Wren Total Calculated Compensation $10,394,819
• IPG's Michael Roth Total Calculated Compensation $8,940,739
• WPP's Martin Sorrell Total Calculated Compensation ?£3,973,000
• Valassis's Alan F. Schultz Total Calculated Compensation $2,811,495