REDWOOD CITY, Calif., June 8, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Equilar, the leader in executive compensation benchmarking and governance research, today announced the publication of the Equilar 200 Highest-Paid CEO Rankings in The New York Times. This list contains the 200 highest-paid chief executives among U.S. companies valued at $1 billion in market capitalization. This is the second of two annual CEO studies that Equilar compiles with The New York Times based on proxy filings from thousands of U.S. firms. The first study appeared in April 2014 and focused on the pay of chief executives at the 100 largest organizations.
"We are honored to be partnering with The New York Times to publish the Equilar 200 Highest-Paid CEO Rankings. This annual list provides a glimpse into the top-paid CEOs at U.S. firms over the past year," said Aaron Boyd, Director of Governance Research at Equilar. "There are a number of new names atop the list this year. The strong stock price performance of several smaller companies led to the biggest payouts of their tenure for several of the CEOs."
Over the past eight years, Equilar has been the preferred data provider to The New York Times for executive compensation information. As part of this collaboration, Equilar provides data on compensation and professional history for top executives at U.S. public companies.
Some of the findings from this year's study include:
- Cheniere Energy CEO Charif Souki was the highest paid at $141.9 million, making him the only CEO earning over $100 million on this year's list.
- Four of the ten highest paid were in the technology sector. Of the 200 CEOs, 11 are women.
- The highest paid was Martine Rothblatt of United Therapeutics with $38.2 million in total pay.
- The highest-paid sector was industrial goods with a median pay of $18.5 million among the 18 chief executives.
- The highest-paid new CEO was Don Mattrick of Zynga, who received $57.8 million for taking over the top job at the online gaming company.
For more information, view the full list and read the article.
About Equilar (www.equilar.com)
Headquartered in Redwood City, Calif., Equilar is the leading provider of executive compensation data and governance tools for corporations, nonprofits, consulting firms, institutional investors and the media. As the trusted data provider to 70% of the Fortune 500, Equilar helps companies accurately benchmark and track executive and board compensation, Say on Pay results and compensation practices. In addition, Equilar offers the industry's leading business networking solution for identifying pathways to executives and board members at companies of interest. Equilar's research is cited regularly by Bloomberg, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and other leading media outlets.