Countrywide Financial Corp. (CFC) announced today that its Chief Executive Officer Angelo Mozilo received $121.85 million in compensation and gains from exercised stock options and stock awards in 2006. Many investors are satisfied with his performance, however, as the stock gained 24% last year outpacing the 7% rise in the KBW Mortgage Finance index. The compensation itself included $89,939 for use of the company aircraft, $27,010 for a company car, $15,481 for country club costs, and $30,196 for tax and investment advice. His salary consisted of $2.87 million in salary, $19 million in option awards, $20.5 million in non-equity incentive awards, and $643,200 in other compensation. He also gained over $72 million from the exercise of over 2.3 million stock options and a $6.6 million gain from the vesting of over 170,000 shares. While all of this compensation seems excessive, as long as the performance is there many investors do not see a problem.

WalMart Inc. (NYSE:WMT) justified CEO Lee Scott's compensation after the media inquired into just how much he really deserved. According to the company's DEF14A filing with the SEC:

"Lee Scott leads the largest and most complex company in the world and has delivered strong financial performance. Last year alone, sales were up $37 billion and income from continuing operations increased by $770 million from the prior fiscal year.

Since he became CEO in 2000, annual sales have more than doubled to $345 billion and income from continuing operations has grown 126 percent to $12.2 billion. Compound annual growth rates are strong in almost every major category: net sales 12.3%, income from continuing operations 11.8%, EPS from continuing operations 12.9%.

We have maintained double-digit annual growth rates in sales and income from continuing operations, which is almost unprecedented for a company this size. More people than ever are shopping at Wal-Mart and that’s why we are once again the number one company in the Fortune 500.

More than 85 percent of our CEO’s compensation, as set by an independent board committee, is tied to the company’s financial performance. Lee Scott’s compensation is benchmarked with the CEOs of other publicly traded U.S. retailers and large companies. When compared to other companies, it is among the lowest as a percentage of annual revenue and net income.

Our associates respect that Wal-Mart has a well-recognized culture of opportunity. They are proud that their CEO started as a manager in the trucking division and has stayed with the company for 28 years. They’re also proud that his leadership -- through sustainability initiatives and the $4 prescription drug program -- reflects the company’s purpose of saving people money so they can live better."

Biogen Idec Inc. (NDAQ:BIIB) President and CEO James Mullen pulled in $12.2 million in 2006 according to a proxy statement filed with the SEC. The pay package consisted of $1.08 million in salary, $2 million in cash awards, $5.78 million in restricted stock awards, and $3.21 million in option grants. The company's stock price between now and 2006 has moved up only 3.78%; however, the company did recently report strong earnings on MS and Cancer drugs that were inline with analyst estimates.

Apple Inc. (NDAQ:AAPL) may face some increased scrutiny after Fred Anderson, the former chief financial officer of Apple, pointed the finger at Steve Jobs. The statement, which comes just after the SEC said Anderson had settled charges related to backdating in 2001, was issued by Anderson's attorney and stated simply that Jobs told Anderson that the Apple board had already signed off on the grant. In the end, Steve Jobs received a pass on any penalties while the SEC forced Anderson to pay more than $3.5 million in what the government called "ill-gotten gains" along with interest. Now given the statements by Anderson and another defendant, the SEC may continue to investigate Jobs' involvement in the backdating problems that plagued Apple.

The House voted Friday to give shareholders a voice in executive pay packages through a proxy vote at annual shareholders meetings. The bill passed 269-134 and now goes to the Senate. The White House and most Republicans shunned the bill, however, stating that the SEC has already recently taken steps to make corporate pay packages more transparent and that the government should stay away from corporate affairs. President Bush said earlier this year that while executive pay packages are sometimes extravagent, it was not a matter for the government to get involved. Whether or not this bill passes through the Senate remains to be seen; however, many are predicting that it will face a lot of opposition before going into law.

The House is set to approve a bill by the end of the week that would give shareholders greater say in CEO pay, but the bill's chances of becoming law are burdened by opposition from the White House and many business groups. The bill's chief sponsor, Barney Frank, says he wants to give shareholders an easy avenue to voice discontent over runaway executive pay. Meanwhile, the White House dismissed the bill amongst complaints from several business groups that argue it would only further burden American corporations. John Costellani of the Businesses Roundtable says its intrusive and impractical while Republicans on the hill worried that the legislation would allow labor groups to force embarrassing corporate votes. While many shareholders already have the right to vote on pay packages, this new legislation would simply mandate votes for all companies and is supported by a number of institutional investors. It remains to be seen if this bill will make progress, but it is definitely a piece of news to watch!

Citigroup (NYSE:C) shareholders narrowly lost a vote to have veto powers over pay awarded to individual executives at the world's largest bank. The rebel group vote signaled increasing discontent over executive rewards in the US. Despite the measure failing, the high turnout in favor will be seen as a severe reprimand for Citigroup's bosses, who have struggled to compete with JP Morgan and the BOA. The vote also came just days after Citigroup announced the largest one-time layoff by a Wall Street bank ever seen, with 5% of its workforce (or 17,000 jobs) slashed. More, the cut came after CEO Charles Prince was awarded a $26 million 2006 pay package. Perhaps it's no wonder why there was such a high turnout...

USA Today released its executive compensation report today that showed the top compensation for CEOs at 150 large cap companies whose fiscal year ended on or after December 15, 2006. The top 10 earners account to the report are:

1. Ray Irani (Occidental Petroleum) - $52,143,188
2. E. Stanley O'Neal (Merrill Lynch) - $46,375,347
3. Alan Mulally (Ford Motor) - $39,128,100
4. Louis Camilleri (Altria Group) - $31,677,662
5. Edward E. Whitacre Jr. (AT&T) - $31,497,742
6. Ronald A. Williams (Aetna) - $30,860,085
7. James Dimon (JPMorgan Chase) - $27,487,858
8. Brian L. Roberts (Comcast) - $27,451,276
9. James E. Rogers (Duke Energy) - $27,328,318
10. Richard M. Kovacevich (Wells Fargo) - $26,864,670

Are these amounts fair? The best way to determine that is to compare their pay with their performance. This can be done using the free tools at ExecutiveDisclosure.com which chart CEO pay versus company performance along with CEO pay versus industry CEO pay. Both metrics can help investors quickly determine if CEOs are over or under paid relative to their peers and performance.

U.S. District Judge Leo Glasser has signed off on a restitution agreement requiring the former CEO of Computer Associates to pay at least $52 million over the next two years to victims of a huge accounting fraud at one of the world's largest software companies. The agreement with Sanjay Kumar, who was sentenced to 12 years in prison, could possibly raise in amount to close to $800 million in payments to people who lost money. Prosecutors, however, note that he and his family will probably never have enough money to pay that amount. Instead, the deal opted for Kumar to make installment payments of $40 million, $10 million and $2 million by December 2008 and then pay 20% of his annual income once he is released from prison for the rest of his life.

Executive pay problems aren't only confined to the United States. A major investor revolt over retiring BP executive Lord Browne's compensation package. Investors who opposed the report were concerned over Browne's still undetermined, but potentially large, exit package and the lack of a specific link between directors' pay and the company's safety performance. Meanwhile, the company dismissed media reports that the executive was being overpaid, insisting that the majority of the reported figures by the media are in stock options that are based on speculative future prices. Moreover, the company argued that the changes he implemented as far as safety is concerned would benefit the company in the future - therefore this pay was also deserved. Despite the opposition, the measures passed by a vote of 83% to 17% in the company's latest proxy. The opposition underscores the increasing concerns that investors worldwide have over executive compensation, however.

Many companies are quickly discovering that limiting executive pay may be easy, but keeping these limits in place is a whole separate issue. The WSJ ran a story today citing an example of this: Whole Food Markets Inc. The grocer limited compensation for its top executives to a multiple of the average Whole Foods workers' pay. The cap started at eight times average pay when the copany was private in the 80s, but quickly grew to 14 times in the early 90s after the company went public. Last year, the cap hit 19 times average pay. Why the raise? there is a strong conflict between the board and management. The board needs to keep compensation low enough to keep shareholders happy while keeping it high enough to retain quality management. The average pay of a CEO in a large American corporation grew to $11.6 million in 2005, or 411 times the typical US worker. This sets the standards to retain quality executives quite high, which has led to the shareholder rebellion that we have been seeing recently. Whether or not this problem will settle down again remains to be seen; however, it is important to realize the struggle that the board has to put up with before anyone can complain about executive compensation growing too high.

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. (NYSE:GT) said today that shareholder resolutions that sought new limits on executive compensation and retirement benefits as well as the adoption of a simple majority vote standard were defeated at the annual meeting. The compensation proposal would have permitted bonus awards to senior executives only when the company's performance exceeded the median of its peer groups. Meanwhile, the retirement benefits proposal had sought to exclude bonus pay from covered compensation under the company's cupplemental executive retirement plan. While Goodyear management had opposed the measures, many shareholders thought that they would still be passed; however, this time larger shareholders vetoed the proposals.

Occidental Petroleum Corporation (NYSE:OXY) revealed in a regulatory filing that its Chairman and CEO, Ray Irani, netted more than $400 million in compensation last year in what is one of the largest single-year payouts in U.S. history. The majority of the payout came from $270 million in options dated 1997 to 2006 that were exercised this year. The executive also received $93 million in stock and dividends from a deferred stock program. Meanwhile, his salary in 2006 was $1.3 million with a cash bonus of $1.4 million and stock option awards amounting to $55 million.

But was the compensation worth it? Well, since the CEO came into office back in December of 1990, the company's stock rose from a mere $9 to share to its current levels of around $50 - a solid 700% gain! While only a few executives have made this much money, clearly this is compensation that is well deserved.

Chief Executive Officer pay finally seems to be slowing down, according to a preliminary survey of CEO compensation released on Monday. The survey, which took proxy data filed through March 23, 2007, covered more than 1,000 large US corporations and found that the median pay for CEOs in 2006 rose only 9.3%. This compares to a 16% rise in 2005 and a 30% rise in 2004. While the pay is still high, it marks the first time since 2002 that CEO pay has risen in only the single digits. Whether or not this is a result of increased disclosure remains to be seen, but it appears that pay is finally moving in the right direction.

GE, Lilly, and SunTrust all failed new SEC rules that require companies to eliminate jargon when explaining how they pay their top executives. According to a study that SEC Chairman Christopher Cox cited in a speech last month, these companies along with 40 others didn't write annual pay reports in "plain english". The study - conducted by Clarity Communications - examined the sentence lengths and types of words used in the companies' financial statements. GE scored a 16.41 on its index, whereas Lilly received a 16.07, and SunTrust received a 17 - the highest possible score. As a basis for comparison, articles in Reader's Digest score right around an eight.

The SEC's executive pay rule overhaul that went into effect in July promised investors that companies would provide "intelligible disclosure that can be understood by a lay reader". While the SEC won't make the companies resubmit their proxy statements, Cox said they would take a tougher stance next year. The Chairman noted, "We have far to go before we can say that legalese and jargon have truly been replaced by plain English." Hopefully over time things will improve to a point where executive compensation finally becomes a transparent disclosure for all investors to review.

The Wall Street Journal released a report questioning whether or not it pays to tell investors extra compensation details. The articles argues that these moves aimed at eliminating investor complaints may backfire by generating increased suspicion over pay packages. Case in point: El Paso. The company offered investors a one-page profile for each of its top officers, featuring a photo, biography, equity grants, and pay highlights. However, the company is still facing criticism from investors who complain that the profile leaves out total compensation while the profiles are "more prominantly placed than they should be". Still, other companies are exceeding the requirements by disclosing specific performance targets for executive bonuses and grants, which is a strategy yet to come under fire from activist investors.

So, are these new executive disclosure rules helpful for the average investor? While they may appear much more helpful on the surface, they tend to hide a multitude of other problems just below. Between negative total pay disclosures, stock option reporting rules, and the variety of presentation formats, the disclosures can be difficult for the average investor to decipher. Ultimately, most investors are simply looking for specific performance targets and accurate total compensation amounts - perhaps the SEC will eventually amend its disclosure rules to make these two variables more apparent than they are now.