In a tale of two CEOs, we find one who got a raise and another whose pay dropped, though both managed to grow revenues in 2009. First, there's the fortunate Robert Coury (photo), CEO of Mylan, whose pay grew to almost $16.5 million. The boost was mostly because of changes in the value of his pension, Dow Jones reports, and nonqualified deferred compensation. His base salary grew by $70,000 to $1.57 million.
How'd Mylan do over that period? Well, its reported revenues dropped by about 1 percent to $5.09 billion. But a chunk of the prior year's revenues accounted for previously deferred revenue from the sale of drug rights. Net revenue for 2009 grew by 8 percent to $5.02 billion.
Then there's Cephalon chief Frank Baldino (photo). His pay dropped 24 percent to $11.1 million, BNet Pharma reports. And at his company, revenues grew 11 percent, to $2.152 billion, and adjusted net income rose by 28 percent to $469 million, beating its forecast.
Every company's different, and executive pay depends on different benchmarks. And it's true that last year, Baldino's pay came in for some criticism; his company's a lot smaller than the Big Pharma firms that pay their CEOs less. But allow us just one more comparison: Jet travel. As BNet points out, Baldino has to reimburse Cephalon for vacation travel on the company plane, and he did in 2009 to the tune of $63,835. Coury gets his for free as a perk; his travel cost the company $433,387 in 2009, up from $348,988 in 2008, Dow Jones reports. That's a lot of flying.
- get Mylan's SEC filing
- get the Dow Jones story
- see the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's brief
- see Mylan's earnings release
- read the post at BNet Pharma
- see Cephalon's SEC filing
- check out the Cephalon earnings release