Filings Watch: Exec Salaries: Moonves' 28 Percent Raise; Martha Stewart's $2.06 Million; Akamai
This story was written by Rafat Ali.
From the filings and stories, executive salary watch for some media companies:
-- MSLO: Martha Stewart, founder of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (NYSE: MSO), received $2.06 million in compensation for 2007 while company CEO Susan Lyne received a little over $1 million as the company returned to profitability, reports AP, citing the proxy filing. She was paid a salary of $900,000 and a bonus of $495,000, the same as in 2006...she also received $378,000 under a non-equity incentive plan. Lyne received a salary of $900,000, the same as in 2006. Wenda Harris Millard, the president of media for MSLO, who joined the company in June last year, has a base salary of $550,000. She received a bonus for 2007 of $440,000; she also received a cash incentive payment of $450,000 to join the company from Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), portions of which amount may be forfeited if she leaves the company before the third anniversary of her employment, the filing says. The company agreed to make her target bonus 80 percent of her base salary in future years. The filing is here.
-- CBS: More possible trouble coming ahead for Leslie Moonves, already reeling from Katie Couric's ratings. layoffs, and other company performance issues: he got a 28 percent boost in total compensation in 2007 to $36.8 million, outstripping peers at Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS) and News Corp. (NYSE: NWS), all of which are much bigger companies, reports LAT, citing the proxy filing. In 2007, Moonves collected $5.3 million in salary and $18.5 million in cash bonuses. He also received more than $12.5 million in stock and option awards, according to the proxy. his contract was renegotiated in October last year, and he will now receive a lower base salary and more equity-based compensation. However, that didn't kick in until October of last year. CBS (NYSE: CBS) Chairman Sumner Redstone received total compensation of $9.7 million in 2007, including a $1.4 million salary and a $4.75 million bonus. That was down from a $12.2 million total the previous year.
-- Akamai: CEO Paul Sagan had a total compensation package of $4.32 million, up from $4.03 million in 2006, according to the proxy filing, with a base salary of $403K, almost similar to last year.
By Rafat Ali