Top Paid CEOs

Forbes: Top Paid CEOs

After a 38% collective pay raise in 2006, chief executives of the 500 biggest companies in the U.S. (as measured by a composite ranking of sales, profits, assets and market value) took a pay cut of 15% last year. The last time the big bosses took a pay hit was in 2002. In total, these 500 executives earned $6.4 billion in 2007, an average of $12.8 million apiece.

The top earner of 2007 was Oracle (nasdaq: ORCL – news – people ) chief Larry J. Ellison. Ellison drew just a $1 million salary, but realized $182 million from the exercise of vested stock options last year. …

…After a few years' hiatus as the most valuable boss in our annual report, Jeffrey P. Bezos of Amazon.com (nasdaq: AMZN – news – people ) once again leads all executives in delivering the most value for the money. Over the past six years, Bezos has been paid a modest $1 million (salary plus other compensation) per year while delivering a 32% annual return to shareholders.

It is worth noting that Bezos has received the same modest $82,000 annual base salary each year and that his annual perk of $1 million covers the cost of his security arrangements. Since Bezos took his company public as chief executive in May 1997, he has delivered an annual 40% return to shareholders, which is significantly better than the 6% annual return of the S&P 500 over that period.

At the bottom of our performance/pay rankings is Mozilo of Countrywide Financial, the distressed subprime mortgage lender. Countrywide's six-year annual return of -9% lagged in comparison with its sector, and its -6% annual return since Mozilo took over as top executive in February 1998 also lagged the S&P 500. Over the past six years, Mozilo has been collecting a paycheck averaging $66 million a year.