Ford raises Mulally's compensation 11% to $29.5 million

Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally's overall compensation in 2011 rose 11 percent, but it could have increased a lot more. Ford, in its annual proxy statement, said today Mulally's total compensation including salary, cash bonuses and stock awards rose to $29.5 million in 2011 from $26.5 million in 2010. Mulally's compensation includes $2 million in salary, $5.46 million in cash bonuses and $22 million in stock awards, the automaker said. But the company cut his cash bonus 42 percent for a year in which the profitable automaker's stock fell 36 percent. Mulally, 66, who joined Ford in 2006 from Boeing Co., engineered a turnaround by globalizing operations, cutting costs and adding fuel-efficient models such as the Fiesta subcompact. Ford shares fell last year on uncertainty about the global recovery, but the shares rose 16 percent this year through yesterday. "He's doing a lot better than the shareholders," said Gary Bradshaw, a fund manager at Dallas-based Hodges Capital Management, which owns about 250,000 Ford shares. "He's done as good a job as any executive out there, but it's getting harder and harder to justify the big salary and big stock options he gets when the stock isn't performing." Ford's compensation committee decides the awards based on the company's performance. "In 2011, we accelerated our transformation to a growing company under our One Ford Plan. We have consistently improved results over a sustained period of time. These results have driven shareholder return," Ford said. Executive Chairman Bill Ford received total compensation of $14.5 million, down 45 percent from 2010, when he received pay deferred from 2008 and 2009. For 2011, Bill Ford received $2 million in salary, $1.56 million in bonus and $10.9 million in stock, option awards and other compensation. The proxy listed total compensation for other executives, including CFO Lewis Booth at $7.7 million, President of the Americas Mark Fields at $8.8 million and Group Vice President Asia Pacific and Africa Joseph Hinrichs at $5.3 million. The proxy, filed in advance of Ford's annual meeting May 10 in Wilmington, Del., lists the compensation of the five highest-paid executives. For 2010, Mulally was the highest paid person in the global auto industry, according to an analysis by Towers Watson & Co., a U.S. benefits consultant. Ford has awarded Mulally stock worth more than $100 million the past two years. His cash bonus was cut for 2011 because Ford fell short of market share and quality goals. Mulally's compensation for last year was still his highest since joining Ford. "Our stock has appreciated under his leadership 370 percent over the last three years," Jay Cooney, a Ford spokesman, said of Mulally. "Clearly, he's delivered shareholder value." In 2011, the company reported a pretax operating profit of $8.8 billion, up $464 million from 2010 and net income of $7.8 billion, up $1.2 billion and its highest in more than ten years. Ford also reduced its automotive debt by $13.1 billion on top of a $14.5 billion reduction in 2010. Ford resumed paying shareholders a dividend in the first quarter of this year. Ford posted automotive operating related cash flow of $5.6 billion, up $1.2 billion from 2010. Ford executive bonuses are paid based on whether the company hits its performance targets under its global One Ford plan. After last year's Ford compensation figures were issued, UAW President Bob King called Mulally's compensation "outrageous" and "morally wrong" at a time when some workers making Ford vehicles made about $15 per hour. "It’s as if there’s an echo in here," UAW Vice President Jimmy Settles, head of the union's Ford department, said in a statement. "As UAW President Bob King said last March on this very subject: Alan Mulally’s a good CEO. But it’s hard to justify the big salary and huge stock options he received for 2011, especially when the company’s stock isn’t performing." “While millions of the 99 percent of Americans continue to struggle and the nation’s unemployment rate hovers just at 8.3 percent, CEOs of the nation’s largest companies -- like Alan Mulally -- continue to receive pay raises at a rate this is outrageous compared to the earnings of workers.” Ford achieved 55 percent of its corporate quality goal, according to the proxy. Last year, the automaker plunged in quality rankings by researcher J.D. Power and Associates due in part to malfunctions with touch-screen dashboard controls on Ford and Lincoln models. The automaker also realized just 8 percent of its corporate market share goal, including achieving 6 percent of the target of a winning 13.7 percent of the auto market in North America and South America, according to the proxy. Ford borrowed $23.4 billion in late 2006 after Mulally took over as CEO, putting up assets including its blue oval logo as collateral. That helped the automaker stay out of bankruptcy in 2009 as the predecessors of General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC sought court protection and reorganized with U.S. aid. To win concessions from the UAW in 2009, Mulally and Bill Ford agreed to 30 percent cuts in their 2009 and 2010 salaries and to forgo bonuses for 2008 and 2009. GM CEO Dan Akerson, whose pay must be approved by the Obama administration's special pay master, said Jan. 10 that he won't get a cash bonus for 2011, the year the automaker earned a record profit and again became the world's largest. Akerson, who served as CEO for four months in 2010, received $2.53 million in total compensation for that year, including a $566,667 salary and $1.96 million in stock awards and other pay, GM said in a proxy statement last year. His annual salary was $1.7 million, the filing said. Volkswagen AG boosted CEO Martin Winterkorn's 2011 compensation 87 percent to 17.5 million euros ($23.3 million) for leading the world's second-largest automaker to a record profit. Winterkorn's pay was the highest among CEOs in the 30 companies that comprise Germany's benchmark DAX Index. Sergio Marchionne, Chrysler's CEO, didn't receive a cash salary or shares from the automaker, according to a company filing March 6. Marchionne is also CEO of Fiat S.p.A., which owns 58.5 percent of Chrysler. Fiat paid him 14.5 million euros in 2011, mostly in stock grants, according to a March 15 filing. Nissan Motor Co. CEO Carlos Ghosn received 982 million yen ($11.9 million) in total compensation for the 2010 fiscal year, including salary and stock options, making him the highest-paid leader among Japanese companies. Ghosn is also CEO of Renault SA, based in the Paris suburb of Boulogne Billancourt. Toyota Motor Corp. President Akio Toyoda was paid 136 million yen in the year ended March 31, 2011, including a 24 million yen bonus, according to a filing last year to Japan's finance ministry. Ghosn's pay was lower than the 2010 average for global automotive companies, estimated at about $15.3 million by Towers Watson.