King execs reap 12% more pay in 2008

Proxy season continues. Today's entry: King Pharmaceuticals, whose executives' pay leapt 12.3 percent, despite a big drop in revenues and a net loss of $333 million on acquisition charges. At least shareholders didn't see their investments tank like some other pharma stocks did in 2008; as BNet Pharma reports, King stock ended the year at about the same price it began with.

Here's how the exec comp breaks down. CEO Brian Markison got an upward bump of 8.9 percent to $7 million, the proxy states. CFO Joseph Squicciarino saw his pay grow to $3.29 million from $2.9 million in 2007, an increase of about 13 percent. Chief commercial officer Stephen Andrzejewski got a slight rise to $2.07 million from $1.945 million. The biggest raise, at least percentagewise, went to James Elrod, chief legal officer, whose pay grew by more than a third, to $1.797 million from $1.335 million.

- see the BNet post

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