On August 13, 2009, the governance research firm, the Corporate Library released its list of the 10 highest paid chief executive officers for 2008. The honor of the highest paid CEO for 2008 went to Blackstone Group’s Stephen Schwarzman who was paid $702 million in compensation and stock options. The majority of Schwarzman’s pay package came from a 25% vesting of his stock options that were granted to him when he took the company public in 2007. “Given that the other 75% of his $4.7 billion 2007 equity grant will vest in equal installments over the next four years, it is reasonably safe to assume that Mr. Schwarzman will remain at the top of the highest-paid CEOs list, or close to it, for a few years to come,” the report said.
The number two person on the list is Lawrence Ellison of Oracle who was paid $557 million. Again, most of the compensation came from stock options, which totaled $543 million even though the stock dropped 21% in 2008. The sixth person on the CEO list is Aubrey McClendon of Chesapeake Energy whose $80 million bonus was the highest bonus received last year by any of the CEOs in the study, despite a huge decline in the stock price.
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