Executive Compensation

Less than a year before the 2008 collapse of Lehman Bros. plunged the global economy into a terrifying free fall, the Wall Street firm awarded nearly $700 million to 50 of its highest-paid employees, according to internal documents reviewed by The Times . The documents, which were among the millions of pages submitted in Lehman's bankruptcy, show the list of top earners each were pledged $8 million to $51 million in cash, stock and other compensation....

The nation's fourth biggest oil company, Occidental Petroleum Corp., is primarily involved in oil and natural gas exploration and production. It is also a major manufacturer of oil-related chemicals. The Westwood company said its domestic production of oil and natural gas rose to the equivalent of 475,000 barrels of oil a day at the end of 2012, setting a record for the ninth straight quarter. But Occidental's stock performance hasn't been as good as that of others in the industry.

For many Orange County executives, 1991 was a year when their pay packages came under greater shareholder scrutiny and corporate boards were cautious in handing out cash bonuses and perks. It mirrored a trend statewide of keeping executive compensation in line with a company's financial performance. Of the top 100 county executives on the list of publicly traded companies, one-third of the officers saw their cash compensation remain unchanged or had it reduced.

On his receipts, the acting director of a Monterey County public hospital district appeared to be paying a luxury car service to ferry him to and from the airport as part of his weekly commute. But Lowell Johnson, interim chief executive at the Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital, was actually paying his daughter for those rides, $50 each way. He then turned in receipts to the hospital district labeled "Airport Town Car. " The district paid him nearly $4,000 in reimbursements for the trips during his first 12 months on the job, according to records.

Re "Lehman elite stood to get $700 million," April 27 "The numbers are shocking but consistent withthe fact that in some ways Wall Street has been run asa casino for extracting money from the real economy and using it to pay extraordinary high levels of compensation. " This quote by Lisa Donner of Americans for Financial Reform in The Times' article on Lehman Bros. aptly sums up what is wrong with Wall Street. This has been Wall Street since the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act; it still is a gambling enterprise.

Kids will be kids Re "Why does Electric Daisy draw fire?," Opinion, Aug. 22 My son has been attending the Electric Daisy concerts for several years. Like many attendees, I'm sure, my kid isn't your typical juvenile delinquent: He's on his high school's honor roll and is a hospital volunteer, among other things. Why he likes Electric Daisy is a mystery to me. But I doubt my parents understood why my generation liked Jefferson Airplane, the Doors or, for that matter, love-ins at Griffith Park.

Ford Motor Co. has made what it pays its top executives about as transparent as any company in America. While many public companies hide their executive compensation data in the fine print of regulatory filings, Ford simply put out a news release that outlined what the bosses were making in fairly simple terms. It also filed the information with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Chief Executive Alan Mulally, the former Boeing executive credited with helping Ford avoid the bankruptcy reorganizations and federal bailouts that sustained General Motors and Chrysler during the recession, earned $29.5 million in total compensation last year.

Amid continued public anger about huge corporate pay packages, the Obama administration's pay czar Tuesday took a series of steps to try to rein in executive salaries and bonuses at firms that received federal taxpayer bailouts. Kenneth R. Feinberg cut annual compensation an average of 15% for top executives at American International Group Inc., General Motors Co., Chrysler and two other firms that have yet to repay their loans. Feinberg, the special master for executive compensation under the $700-billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, also sent letters to all 419 recipients of TARP cash -- many of which have repaid the money -- in an attempt to determine whether salaries and bonuses paid during the height of the financial crisis were too high.

Faced with mounting public and legislative pressure to rein in presidential pay packages, California State University trustees Wednesday adopted a new policy that limits executive compensation. The policy will cap the salary of newly hired presidents at 10% above that of their predecessor, with a ceiling of $325,000 in public funds. The measure was approved unanimously by the Board of Trustees at a meeting in Long Beach. The action followed a public outcry over the decision in July to pay the new president of San Diego State University an annual salary of $400,000 — $350,000 in public funds and $50,000 from a campus foundation — which was $100,000 more than his predecessor.

Graef Crystal is too loose in his efforts to paint a dark picture of the federal legislation ("Need a Good Laugh? Look at Caps on Executive Pay," May 12). For example, he simply disregards the collective action problems faced by a diverse conglomeration of relatively small shareholders and attributes the lack of private-sector oversight to their being "too stupid or lazy to step forward." When one considers just how much intelligence and energy--not to mention money--is required to succeed in mobilizing a proxy contest under current law, a genuine question emerges as to the potential efficacy of such shareholder-sponsored efforts.

Nonprofit insurer Blue Shield of California said its outgoing chief executive earned $4.6 million last year, off slightly from a year earlier, as all insurance companies faced new government rules on how customer premiums are spent. Bruce Bodaken, Blue Shield's longtime chairman and chief executive who plans to retire at year end, earned $38,348, or 1%, less than he did in 2010. The San Francisco company declined to comment on the value of Bodaken's retirement pay and benefits or to reveal the pay package of his successor.

Should the next chancellor of the California State University system have classroom experience? Should the successful candidate take a salary reduction given the state's precarious fiscal condition? Should the position have term limits? Those questions and more were raised in the first meeting of a special panel of the Board of Trustees that has begun the search for the next top executive of the 23-campus system. The current leader, Charles B. Reed, announced in May that he would retire after 14 years as head of the nation's largest public four-year university system.

Re "School posts may be tough to fill," June 11 Regarding the search to replace three chancellors of public colleges and universities, The Times quotes Scott Himelstein, president of the community colleges Board of Governors, as saying, "I think the governor and Legislature are very clear in not wanting to consider any raises in executive compensation. " It's a great sentiment but I have zero confidence that it will happen. There will be extensive national searches, and when the final candidates are selected, the public statements will say that the salaries offered were justified and necessary to attract the best person for each of these exceedingly difficult and complex positions.

Investors are still asking what Facebook is really worth. But a more apt question might be: What's the average CEO worth? The head of a typical public company pocketed $9.6 million in compensation last year, according to some number crunching from the Associated Press . This represents a more than 6% increase from the previous year and is the highest average figure seen since the AP began tracking executive compensation in 2006....

Apple Inc. announced that Chief Executive Tim Cook would be passing up on $75 million by not participating in the Cupertino, Calif., company's quarterly dividends. With the company set to start giving out a quarterly dividend of $2.65 a share by the fourth quarter of this year, Cook decided not to collect the dividends for his 1.125 million shares, which would amount to $75 million before they each vested. Cook's decision to decline the payments was announced Thursday by the company through an SEC filing.

TAMPA, Fla. - Jamie Dimon will keep his jobs as chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan Chase & Co. Shareholders overwhelmingly voted him back onto the board as well as approving executive compensation packages. Shareholders voted only 40% in favor of a nonbinding proposal to split the jobs of chairman and CEO. Final vote tallies will be filed later with the Securities and Exchange Commission. But shareholders at the bank's annual meeting in Tampa, Fla., took the opportunity to confront Dimon about the company's recently disclosed $2-billion loss and 12% stock plunge.

A House committee hearing on executive pay Thursday spotlighted the sharp partisan divide on the issue, with Democrats demanding reforms and Republicans warning against any meddling with the free-market system. The House Financial Services Committee hearing was sought by Democrats, who are backing legislation that would allow shareholders of public companies to veto executive pay packages. But Rep. Richard H. Baker (R-La.

Occidental Petroleum Corp. and Unocal Corp. are similar in many ways. They're both Los Angeles-based oil companies boasting more than $10 billion in sales. And they've both announced major restructuring plans that caused them to jettison thousands of workers. But when it comes to executive compensation, the two firms seem polar opposites. On one side, there's Richard Stegemeier, who started his career at Unocal and slowly worked his way up the ranks before being named chief executive in 1988.

Re "Tuition costs prompt hunger strikes," April 29 California State University spokesman Mike Uhlenkamp says the students planning hunger strikes to protest excessive executive compensation don't understand the issues. It is the university that seems not to understand the issues. I am a Cal State faculty member, and as such it is important to me that people understand that the university leadership does not represent the thousands of faculty and staff of Cal State. We stand with the students against excessive executive compensation.

Re "Lehman elite stood to get $700 million," April 27 "The numbers are shocking but consistent withthe fact that in some ways Wall Street has been run asa casino for extracting money from the real economy and using it to pay extraordinary high levels of compensation. " This quote by Lisa Donner of Americans for Financial Reform in The Times' article on Lehman Bros. aptly sums up what is wrong with Wall Street. This has been Wall Street since the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act; it still is a gambling enterprise.