In Georgia, executive pay for senior executive rose three percent in 2008 to $1.88 million, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis of pay packages of more than 100 executives at Georgia’s 20 largest publicly owned companies.
The increase came in a year when 13 of the 20 companies saw their net income fall, and 17 saw the price of their stock drop. About a third of the executives studied did not receive performance-based short-term bonus or incentive payments in 2008, the SEC filings showed. That was nearly three times as many as missed such payments, made for meeting financial goals, in 2007.
Neville Isdell, former Coca-Cola chairman and CEO, ranked first in the AJC survey with a pay package valued at $23.1 million, up 7 percent from the year before. Still, critics of executive pay and increased shareholder activism are expected to reform the system, possibly leading to a drop in these numbers.