CEO pay exceeds pre-recession level

The typical pay package for the head of a company in the Samp;P's 500 was 9 mn in 2010.

In the boardroom,it8217;s as if the Great Recession never happened.

CEOs at America8217;s largest companies were paid better last year than they were in 2007,when the economy was booming,the stock market set a record high and unemployment was roughly half what it is today.

The typical pay package for the head of a company in the Standard amp; Poor8217;s 500 was USD 9 million in 2010,according to an analysis by The Associated Press using data provided by Equilar,an executive compensation research firm.

That was 24 per cent higher than a year earlier,reversing two years of declines.

Executives were showered with more pay of all types salaries,bonuses,stock,options and perks. The biggest gains came in cash bonuses: two-thirds of executives got a bigger one than they had in 2009,some more than three times as big.

CEOs were rewarded because corporate profits soared in 2010 as the economy gradually got stronger and companies continued to cut costs. Profit for the companies in the AP analysis rose 41 per cent last year.

The stock market also continued its climb. Stocks rose 13 per cent in 2010 and have now almost doubled since March,2009. The market8217;s two-year run has fattened executive bonuses because some CEOs are rewarded for how the company8217;s stock does.

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Separately,the bull market has left CEOs enormous paper gains on stock and options they were granted as part of pay packages in 2009 and 2010. They are already worth USD 6.3 billion,68 percent more than the companies thought they would be worth over the lifetime of the grants.

AP used the Equilar data to analyse CEO pay packages at 334 companies in the Samp;P 500 that had filed statements with federal regulators through April 29. Pay was analysed at companies that had the same CEO in both 2009 and 2010.

The AP8217;s analysis is the most comprehensive of 2010 compensation.

Among the other findings in the AP analysis: The highest-paid CEO in 2010 was Philippe Dauman of Viacom,the entertainment company that owns MTV,Nickelodeon and Paramount Pictures. He received a pay package valued at USD 84.5 million,two-and-a-half times what he made the year before. He signed a contract in April,2010,that included stock and options valued by the company at USD 54.2 million when they were granted.

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Six of the 10 best-paid CEOs come from media or entertainment,industries helped by a recovery in advertising and innovations in digital distribution.

Besides Dauman,they are Leslie Moonves of CBS,USD 56.9 million; David Zaslav of Discovery Communications,USD 42.6 million; Brian Roberts of Comcast,USD 31.1 million; Robert Iger of Walt Disney,USD 28 million; and Jeff Bewkes of Time Warner,USD 26.1 million.