CEOs Take Home Ever-Bigger Paychecks, Forbes Reports

Despite all the efforts to curb the compensation paid to the nation’s chief executive officers, the CEOs of America’s largest companies still managed to take home bigger paychecks than ever last year, according to Forbes Magazine.

The magazine reports in its May 23 issue, “Corporate America’s Most Powerful People,” that 63% of the CEOs on its Forbes 800 list--the biggest publicly held firms--made at least $1 million in total pay in 1993, up from 61% in 1992 and 47% in 1991.

Total compensation includes salary, bonuses and non-cash stock gains--mainly from exercising options--and other benefits.

It said that the big money is not made in salary and bonuses but in stock gains.

The highest-paid Forbes 800 CEO in 1993, Michael Eisner of Walt Disney Co., made only $750,000 in salary and bonuses, but he added to that more than $202 million from gains in stock options.

Measured by salary and bonuses, as a group, the Forbes 800 CEOs made 11% more last year than they did in 1992.

In 1993, the median was $896,000--a base salary of $569,000 plus a $327,000 bonus. Forbes said that median compensation soared to $1.4 million from $1.2 million in 1992, after the gains from the exercise of stock options is factored in.