Three Indian Americans among top drawing 200 CEOs in US

Three Indian Americans are among the 200 CEOs of large public companies who received an average of over $11 million compensation in 2007. Besides Indra Nooyi and Vikram Pandit, Rajiv L. Gupta of Rohm and Haas is one of them.

Gupta's package was $7.3 million, cash pay being $2.8 million, according to the CEO pay tabulated Sunday by The New York Times based on proxies filed by companies.

Muzaffarnagar-born, IIT educated, Gupta took over as chairman and CEO of the Pennsylvania-based chemicals multinational in 1999.

For Nooyi, chief of PepsiCo, the total annual package was $14.7 million, with a cash pay of $4.9 million, stock awards and option awards making up the rest.

Pandit, who took over as chief of Citigroup only in last December, received a total of $3.2 million, out of which a huge chunk of $2.9 million was in stock awards.

The highest compensation - a whopping $84 million - went to Johan Thain, chief of Merrill Lynch, while Rupert Murdoch of News Corp took home $24 million.

Steven Jobs of Apple chose to take only a token $1. Even the richest man in the world, Warren Buffett, took only $175,000 from his company, Berkshire Hathaway.

http://www.newkerala.com/one.php?action=fullnews&id=44902