Altria Group CEO Earns $9 Million in 2009

Source from:  AP 04/13/2010

The CEO of the nation's largest tobacco company, Altria Group Inc., received compensation worth nearly $9 million for 2009, a 23 percent decrease as the company's cigarette sales fell, according to a regulatory filing Monday. Much of the decrease in pay for Michael Szymanczyk, who also is Altria's chairman, came from a nearly 37 percent decline in the value of restricted stock he received. Altria owns Philip Morris USA, which makes top seller Marlboro and other brands. The $4.2 million in stock that Szymanczyk, 61, received in 2009 was almost half his pay, compared with the $6.7 million in stock he got in 2008. At the time, that was more than half his total 2008 pay package of $11.6 million. Szymanczyk's 2009 base salary was $1.3 million, a 7 percent increase from the $1.2 million he got in 2008. Most of the remainder of Szymanczyk's compensation came from a $3 million performance-based bonus, 7 percent more than he received the previous year. He also received other compensation that the Richmond, Va., company valued at almost $500,000, roughly half the value of the perks he got the year before. Among his perks in 2009: $300,000 for personal use of the company's aircraft and more than $192,500 the company put into a defined-contribution retirement plan. The Associated Press formula is designed to isolate the value the company's board placed on the executive's total compensation package during the last fiscal year. It includes salary, bonus, performance-related bonuses, perks, above-market returns on deferred compensation and the estimated value of stock options and awards granted during the year. The calculations don't include changes in the present value of pension benefits, making the AP total different in most cases from the total reported by companies to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Altria's full-year profit plunged 35 percent in 2009 to $3.21 billion, or $1.54 per share. But the comparison is complicated: The figure for 2008 included Philip Morris International Inc., which makes Altria's brands for sale overseas and was spun off in March 2008, while the 2009 figure included smokeless tobacco company UST LLC, which Altria bought in 2009. The company's full-year revenue rose 22 percent to $23.56 billion from $19.36 billion, including taxes Altria collects. Its cigarette volume fell 12.2 percent - more than the industry average of 8 percent, according to Altria's estimate. Altria shares rose 12 cents to $21.05 in midday trading Monday. Enditem