Incentives Lift Staples CEO Compensation To $30M
Sargent triples previous year's pay
By Mark Jewell
AP Business Writer
Staples Inc. Chairman and CEO Ronald Sargent was awarded compensation valued at $30.3 million in 2007, as the world's largest office products supplier continued to put distance between itself and its lagging U.S. rivals, Office Depot and OfficeMax.
Sargent's 2007 compensation total is more than three times his $9.9 million in 2006.
The bulk of Sargent's 2007 compensation came from stock and option awards totaling 750,000 shares under an incentive package whose value depends on how well Staples performs through 2011, according to a regulatory filing by the Framingham, Mass.-based company.
The awards carried an estimated value of $19.6 million when they were awarded last March. Sargent was awarded $8.5 million in additional stock and options last year.
Sargent was paid a $1.1 million salary, up 3.6 percent from a year earlier, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Dollars & Cents
He was awarded $621,006 in non-equity incentives, down from $1.5 million in 2006. He also was given $471,292 in other compensation, perquisites that included everything from $121,030 in executive life insurance premiums to $53,871 for tax preparation services.
Sargent, 52, has been chief executive since February 2002 and board chairman since March 2005 at Staples, a 21-year-old chain with more than 2,000 stores and 76,000 employees. Staples is the world's largest supplier of office products, ahead of Delray, Fla.-based Office Depot Inc. and Naperville, Ill.-based OfficeMax Inc.
Associated Press calculations of total pay include executives' salary, bonus, incentives, 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, and they sometimes differ from the totals companies list in the summary compensation table of proxy statements filed with the SEC.
In awarding Sargent the performance-based stock-and-options package, Staples said its compensation committee considered the compounded annual growth rate of nearly 18 percent that Staples' stock has posted over the five years.
Staples said Sargent has ``displayed exceptional leadership during his tenure at Staples.''
The incentive package covering a five-year period ending at the close of fiscal 2011 awards Sargent 375,000 shares of restricted stock if he stays with the company through that period. Another 375,000 shares will be issued only if Staples achieves certain financial targets through fiscal 2011.
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