A surprise name on region's best-paid list

It's no surprise to find that Comcast Corp.'s Brian Roberts was the top-paid chief executive last year on the Philly 50 list of the region's most valuable publicly traded companies.

Comcast, the nation's biggest cable TV firm and the most valuable company here, with a market value of $114 billion, paid Roberts $25 million.

The total included $11.8 million in cash, $9.6 million in stock-based pay, and $3.7 million in other compensation, according to data from Equilar, a compensation-data firm.

But it's interesting to see who was second to Roberts in cash pay.

That prize goes to Jeffrey A. Weiss, chairman and chief executive of number 50 on the list: DFC Global Corp., a Berwyn company with payday-lending operations in North America and several European countries.

Weiss, chairman and CEO of DFC, received cash pay of $5.8 million for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2012, according to the Equilar data.

Weiss' total pay was $10.8 million, sixth-highest on the Philly 50 list, landing him among CEOs of much larger firms, such as DuPont Co., Crown Holdings Inc., Universal Health Services Inc., and Lincoln National Corp., and his 167 percent increase in total pay from 2011 was tops among the 50 companies.

DFC did not respond to requests for comment.

Most of Weiss' cash compensation came from a $4.24 million annual bonus, which is based mostly on a modified profit figure.

"Anything earnings-based is very common to have in a bonus program," said Peter Schloth, a principal in Mercer, a consulting firm in Philadelphia.

DFC takes that figure, known as earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, or EBITDA, and goes further.

It adjusts it for currency fluctuations, which makes sense for a firm with international operations, but it also does not count store-closings losses, stock-based compensation, acquisition costs, or litigation settlements.

In June, DFC reached a settlement with federal regulators, agreeing to refund $3.3 million to soldiers who were allegedly subject to "deceptive marketing and lending practices" by a DFC subsidiary.

If the same bonus formula was used for 2013, it seems likely that the payment won't affect bonuses.

DFC's adjusted-earnings target for 2012 was $288.9 million. DFC had to earn at least 90 percent of that in order for Weiss, whose base salary was $1 million, to get one of his annual bonuses.

He could double that bonus to 250 percent of his salary if DFC had $303.3 million in adjusted EBITDA. DFC just made it, reporting adjusted EBITDA of $303.7 million.

That skin-of-the-teeth figure secured $2.5 million of Weiss' bonus. The rest was from a $750,000 "discretionary bonus," $985,000 under an old employment agreement, and $531,333 under an additional cash incentive plan.