Xerox gives Ursula Burns hefty bump in compensation
Matthew Daneman – Staff writer
Business – April 9, 2010 - 5:00am
Ursula M. Burns’ job promotion in 2009 came with many more responsibilities.
It also came with a lot more rewards.
The CEO of Xerox Corp. last year received compensation, primarily in the form of cash and stock, with an estimated value of $11.2 million. That was up sizably from her $6.8 million pay package in 2008.
Former Chief Executive Anne M. Mulcahy, who stepped down from that role last July but remained company chairman, received compensation of $4.8 million, down from $13.6 million in 2008. Mulcahy has announced her retirement effective in May, when Burns will become chairman as well as CEO.
The executive compensation figures were included with information being sent to shareholders in advance of Xerox’s annual meeting, which is set for May 20.
Burns’ base salary for 2009 — her actual paycheck — was $900,000. When Mulcahy stepped down as CEO but stayed on as chairman, her base salary decreased from $1.32 million to $1 million.
The company decided early in 2009 that top executives wouldn’t get salary raises because of turbulent economic conditions. So Burns did not receive a raise even when she became CEO.
But starting April 1, her base salary grew to $1.1 million a year. No other top executives are getting a raise in 2010.
Xerox’s top executives receive most of their compensation through the company’s Executive Long-Term Incentive Program. Burns in 2009 was given restricted stock with an estimated value of $6.9 million; she had received $4 million in stock in 2008.
Mulcahy, meanwhile, received no stock under the program in 2009.
The company does not give stock options.
In the past, Long-Term Incentive Program payouts were tied to the company meeting certain targets. But for 2009, the board instead pegged the incentive program to Xerox’s stock performance. For 2010, the incentive program is again tied to the company meeting goals in such areas as earnings per share and cash flow.
Burns also received $1.9 million in cash in 2009 under the company’s Annual Performance Incentive Plan, which was tied to the company meeting certain business benchmarks.
An analysis earlier this month by The New York Times and executive compensation consultancy Equilar Inc. found that compensation at 199 large publicly traded companies that had filed proxy statements by March 26 had dropped on average by 15 percent in 2009.
But two of the Rochester area’s largest employers — Xerox and Eastman Kodak Co. — bucked that trend. Kodak CEO Antonio M. Perez received pay, stock and options in 2009 with a value Kodak estimated at $12.6 million, up 61 percent from his 2008 compensation. Kodak pointed to the turnaround the company began to see in late 2009 as justification for the increased compensation.
Xerox was not part of that Equilar analysis. But if it had been, Burns’ $11.2 million would have put her in the upper half, with her compensation roughly akin to that paid in 2009 to the heads of aluminum company Alcoa Inc. and food company Sara Lee Corp.
MDANEMAN@DemocratandChronicle.com
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