Google's Arora top paid with $46.7 mn in 2012 compensation

Chief Financial Officer Patrick Pichette was next highest, receiving $38.7 mn in 2012, also more than doubling from a year earlier, to the filing

Google Inc Chief Business Officer Nikesh Arora received $46.7 million in total compensation last year, more than double from a year earlier, becoming the company's highest-paid executive, a regulatory filing shows.

Chief Financial Officer Patrick Pichette was next highest, receiving $38.7 million in 2012, also more than doubling from a year earlier, to the filing. The company awarded David Drummond, chief legal officer, $31.3 million during the year, a 71 per cent boost from 2011.

Google's net income gained 10 per cent to $10.7 billion as sales increased 32 per cent to $50.2 billion last year. The compensation increase was especially high in 2012 after the company last year started to hand out equity awards only in even-numbered years, according to the filing.

"Granting less frequently allows us to incorporate performance over a longer time period into our equity decisions," Mountain View, California-based Google said in the filing. "We expect that future equity awards will also have higher at-grant target values than awards made under our pre-2012 annual granting practices."

Chairman Eric Schmidt received total compensation of $7.63 million last year, down from $101 million in 2011, when his overall package was boosted by stock and options valued at $93.8 million.

Chief Executive Officer Larry Page and co-founder Sergey Brin each received a $1 salary last year, unchanged from 2011. Page and Brin rank 25th and 26th, respectively, on the Bloomberg Billionaires list.