Celgene's Alles gets $4M pay boost with CEO promotion, but Hugin still beats with $16M-plus

Celgene’s Bob Hugin moved upstairs last year to the executive chairman’s seat, making way for Mark Alles to take his place as CEO. And with that move came a cut in pay—a $6 million cut, to be exact.

Hugin racked up $16.53 million in compensation last year, according to the company’s proxy statement (PDF). That’s down from $22.75 million in 2015—which was itself almost $2 million lower than his 2014 haul.

It’s not surprising: chairmen, even executive chairmen, rarely take in the level of compensation they did as CEOs. In fact, the reason Hugin’s 2016 numbers are as high as they are is that Alles took over March 1, putting Hugin in line for CEO-level pay for the first two months of the year.

Hugin’s biggest line item was non-equity incentive pay, which amounted to $6.29 million, a decrease of more than $1 million. HIs option and stock awards—$4.23 million and $4.26 million, as valued on the day they were officially granted—both decreased as well, with his options amount dropping by almost 50% from the almost $8 million Hugin garnered the year before.

Hugin also collected $1.5 million in base pay and about $247,000 in other compensation, which mostly came in the form of matching contributions to the company’s nonqualified retirement plan.

Meanwhile, Alles himself totted up $12.19 million, the proxy stated, a 54% increase over his 2015 pay of $7.91 million. His base pay was a bit over $1 million, but his stock awards matched Hugin’s at $4.26 million. Options and cash incentive pay, however, both fell short of Hugin’s at $3.16 million and $3.69 million, respectively. Other compensation rang in at $18,334.