Last year seems to be stacking up as an excellent one in terms of the compensation of finance chiefs at big-name companies. Merrill Lynch CFO Ahmass Fakahany, for instance, earned about $10 million last year — including roughly $5.3 million bonus and $4.4 million in restricted stock — he is far from the highest paid executive at the investment banking giant.
Meanwhile, Merck CFO Judy Lewent made more than $6.3 million last year, in large part from netting $5 million from the exercise of stock options and the subsequent sale of the underlying stock.
And at Johnson and Johnson, vice chairman and CFO Robert Darretta brought home more than $4.6 million last year, nearly half of it from exercising stock options.
Fakhany’s compensation package at Merrill seems consistent with that senior executives at other large financial services firms.
Indeed, Stanley O’Neal, Merrill’s chairman and chief executive, pulled in about $25 million, including a $500,000 salary, a $13.5 million bonus, and $11.2 million in restricted shares.
At Merck, other executives who cashed in options in a big way include Per Wold-Olsen, president of the drug maker’s Human Health operations in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, who took in $3.9 million, and David Anstice, president of Human Health, who netted $2.4 million.