Is Comcast CEO Roberts a "Highest Paid Worst Performer"?

Despite corporate America's poor performance last year, three-quarters of CEOs got a salary hike in 2008, says the Corporate Library, a Maine-based consultant to investors and insurers, in this report surveying pay for 2,062 CEOs at publicly-traded companies.

The median big-company CEO's base salary went up 4.5%, to $600,000. But total CEO take-home pay fell 6.4%, to $1.7 million - the first drop since the survey started in 2002 - as the slump hurt bosses' stock grants and options.

The highest-paid CEOs were private-equity baron (and Abington native) Stephen A. Schwarzman of Blackstone Group, who collected $702 million in stock and cash; Oracle Corp.'s Lawrence J. Ellison, who took home $557 Million; and Ray Irani of Occidential Petroleum Corp., $222 Million.

Corporate Library also listed five "Highest Paid Worst Performers," including Abercrombie & Fitch boss Michael Jeffries, JW Stewart of BJ Services, International Paper's John Faraci, Nabors Industries' Eugene M. Isenberg, and Brian L. Roberts, chief executive of Philadelphia's own Comcast Corp.

Roberts realized $40.8 million, including $22 million from stock options granted in earlier years, despite the company's having "underperformed both (its) peers and the S&P 500" over the previous five- and three-year periods (though it did better last year), according to Corporate Library.

Comcast, in its yearly 14-a statement to shareholders, said it targets compensation for Roberts and other top executives at "the 75th percentile" of what other media companies (CBS, News Corp., Time Warner, Viacom, Walt Disney) and "general industry peers" (Oracle, Coca-Cola, Wells Fargo, among others) pay their top guys, adjusting for financial factors like cash flow growth.

"Despite the weakening economy and intensifying competition, the Company delivered very healthy growth in revenue and operating cash flow," Comcast wrote in its compensation discussion. Boss pay was approved by the board's Compensation Committee, headed by former University of Pennsylvania President Judith Rodin.

It's increasingly rare to peg pay to the top 25% of peers, says Paul Hodgson, senior research associate for Corporate Library. "When you choose your peers that already contain some of the most highly compensated CEOs in the country, and then you say you're going to pay in the upper quartile, that has the immediate effect of inflating cmopnesation levels," he told me. A Comcast official called him after the company made his list. The company reviewed his findings, but didn't challenge them, he said.

Hodgson predicts CEO pay will go up at most companies next year, since the stock market has recovered, even if employment and most workers' wages haven't.