Columbia S&L; Chief Gets 3rd-Biggest Paycheck in U.S.

Thomas Spiegel, who runs Columbia Savings & Loan in Beverly Hills, made $9.03 million in 1985, making him the third-highest-paid corporate chief executive in the United States, behind Chrysler’s Lee A. Iacocca and oilman T. Boone Pickens Jr., according to a ranking by Forbes magazine.

Spiegel’s 1985 compensation included a salary of $960,000, a bonus of $3 million and a retirement contribution of $5 million, Columbia’s most recent proxy statment said. In 1984, Spiegel received a salary of $600,000, a bonus of $750,000 and a retirement contribution of $500,000.

Spiegel, in an interview, said his compensation reflected Columbia Savings’ 1985 earnings of $122 million, nearly triple what they were in 1984 and “far in excess of what had been projected” before the year started. Columbia recorded a large profit by selling high-yielding assets during a time of falling interest rates.

Columbia Savings, ranked 13th in asset size among California S&Ls;, earned $77.2 million in the first quarter of 1986. H. F. Ahmanson & Co., by contrast, now the state’s (and the nation’s) largest savings and loan company, earned $67.8 million.

Spiegel said that all but $2 million of his 1985 compensation has been deferred from four to 25 years. He also seemed nonchalant about his new ranking.

“It’s not something I really think about,” the 40-year-old chief executive said. “I don’t compare myself to what other CEOs make because I don’t know the details of their operations.”

Iacocca’s compensation last year was $11.5 million and Pickens’ was $9.88 million, Forbes said.