General Electric in 2012 boosted CEO compensation

General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt / Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

NEW YORK General Electric (GE) says its Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt received compensation for 2012 that was 80 percent more than his pay in 2011.

The company, which makes products ranging from light bulbs to jet engines, gave Immelt a pay package valued at nearly $20.6 million, according to an Associated Press analysis of regulatory documents filed Monday. That compares with $11.4 million in 2011.

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General Electric gave Immelt a $3.3 million salary, unchanged from the prior year, and boosted his bonus to $4.5 million from $4 million.

The company did not grant any stock or option awards but gave Immelt nearly $12.1 million for his performance, a payment it grants once every three or more years based on meeting certain goals. The total compensation package also includes $138,012 in above-market earnings from interest on his pension fund.

General Electric also gave Immelt use of the company aircraft, car allowance and other perks valued at $574,507, up from $447,191 in the prior year.

Immelt has helped reshape GE, focusing on its more traditional operations, such as making complex industrial equipment and providing services to companies. GE also makes refrigerators, CT-scanners, wind turbines, gas turbines and engines for jets and trains. It has sold non-industrial assets like NBC Universal. And in a new push, it also provides equipment and services to the oil and gas industry.

The company posted net income of $13.6 billion, or $1.39 per share, on revenue of $147.4 billion for 2012. That's up from net income of $13.1 billion, or $1.24 per share, on revenue of $147.3 billion in 2011. GE expects its revenue and profit growth to continue this year with a heavy backlog of new business.

The Associated Press formula calculates an executive's total compensation during the last fiscal year by adding salary, bonuses, perks, above-market interest the company pays on deferred compensation and the estimated value of stock and stock options awarded during the year. The AP formula does not count changes in the present value of pension benefits. That makes the AP total slightly different in most cases from the total reported by companies to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Shares of Fairfield, Conn.-based GE fell 15 cents to close at $23.62. Its stock price has increased about 23 percent in the past 52 weeks.

[Disgruntledjoe]

Sheer greed, when both employees are seeing pay and benefit cuts and suppliers to GE are being pushed to cut prices and extend 120+ days credit to GE this is unjustifiable. This man is not GE he himself does not make the profits its the employees as a whole . As the turnover of staff with key knowledge continues to escalate due to the real terms cuts in their compensation packages, which does not include free access to corporate limos, jets, apartments worldwide etc, etc, the future for GE is perhaps not so promising. All the jobs that Mr Immelt has shipped out of the US, and all the taxes that GE have creatively managed to avoid are doing our economy no good. I wonder how much State and Federal tax he pays himself compared to us ordinary line guys ?

[Fastprintron]

Excessive. Corporate boards of directors need to learn: 1.There's no exact correlation between executive pay and superior performance, 2. They could likely get better results spending that money on smart advertising, 3. The company belongs to the stockholders; give stockholders the so-called bonus money.