Travelers Sanford Weill Is Top-Paid Ceo

Travelers Group Inc chairman Sanford Weill received $228 million in compensation last year more than George Lucas, Oprah Winfrey or Michael Jordan making him the highest-paid boss in America, says Forbes magazine.

Weill, 65, was the clear leader in Forbes tally of compensation for the chief executives of 800 US companies, appearing in the issue that hit the newsstands yesterday.

From 1993 to 1997, financial services giant Travelers chief received $434 million in all, the magazine said. Weill and his wife, Joan, pledged $100 million to medical research at his alma mater, Cornell University, the school announced last Thursday. It was the largest gift ever to the Ivy League school.

 

Behind Weill on the list were insurer Conseco Inc CEO Stephen Hilbert, with $125 million in compensation, health care provider HealthSouth Corps Richard Scrushy ($107 million), Occidental Petroleum Corps Ray Irani ($105 million) and industrial powerhouse AlliedSignal Incs Lawrence Bossidy ($58 million).

By comparison, Stephen Spielberg made about $283 million last year in gross income, putting him on top of the Forbes Top 40 list of the countrys highest-paid entertainment figures. But Star Wars creator Lucas lagged Weill with $189 million, as did talk show host Winfrey with $104 million. Basketball superstar Michael Jordan made $78 million, putting him on the Forbes Super 40 list of top-paid athletes.

However, being the highest paid CEO doesnt necessarily make you the richest. That honor went to Microsoft Corp head Bill Gates, whose $591,000 in 1997 compensation put him at number 749 on the Forbes 800 but whose stock in the company he co-founded was valued at $49.5 billion.

Rounding out the top five wealthiest CEOs were investment company Berkshire Hathaway Incs legendary Warren Buffett, with $36.5 billion, personal computer maker Dell Computer Corps Michael Dell ($7.8 billion), software company Oracle Corps Lawrence Ellison ($6.2 billion) and entertainment power Viacom Incs Sumner Redstone ($5.3 billion).

In terms of potential wealth, Walt Disney Co head Michael Eisner with $461 million worth of unexercised stock options in the entertainment giant could cash in the most in the future.

The magazine determined compensation by summing up salary, bonus, non-cash stock gains mainly from exercising stock options and other benefits such as country club memberships, life insurance premiums and car allowances. The information came from proxy statements and questionnaires sent out by Forbes. The 800 companies came from Forbes 500 lists ranking companies according to sales, profits, assets and market value, plus 21 runners-up for those lists.

According to Forbes, the average US CEO is a 56-year-old man 797 of the 800 are men who has spent 21 years at the company he heads. 52 of the 800 never got a college degree, but 53 percent have graduate degrees. The oldest CEO: William Dillard, 83, of department store chain Dillards Inc. The youngest: Michael Dell, 33.

Forbes also ranked cities according to CEO pay. The winner? High-tech hot spot San Jose, Calif., with $10.07 million in median total compensation among the 19 companies based there.

San Francisco took second place with $3.74 million, followed by Cleveland ($3.70 million), Pittsburgh ($3.55 million) and New York ($3.5 million).