Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) CEO
William Weldon received compensation last year valued at $25.1 million - a 22% increase - at the same time the company is planning to cut 4 percent of its workforce in its biggest restructuring ever. The executive received a base salary of $1.73 million, $7.7 million in stock options, and another $9.19 million in an annual performance bonus. Finally, the executive also received other compensation of $3.22 million with $118,653 in personal use of company aircraft and $29,753 for a personal car and driver.
Johnson & Johnson itself saw a rare decline in net income last year after it took restructuring charges of $528 million. The broad plan also called for the elimination of 4,820 jobs in an effort to boost their bottom line by cutting expenses. Sales jumped, however, on acquisition of Pfizer's large consumer health business. Shareholders clearly took note as this years proxy comes with one shareholder proposal on the subject of executive compensation. Like most others, this would be for a non-binding vote to approve compensation and policies used to set that compensation.
In the end, this compensation isn't as ridiculous as many others we've seen and it does tie pay to performance fairly well.