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Corporate Governance

: The Race to the Bottom

Director Compensation Project: 2009 Compensation Comparison

By Joseph Aguilar

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Over the last several weeks, The Race to the Bottom has covered corporate compensation through its Director Compensation Project. In an effort to compile the mass of information, we are providing a series of charts to compare how these corporations are compensating their executives and directors. In the following table, we have paired average director compensation, executive total compensation, and if the corporation has separation between its CEO and Chairman of the Board. The companies are Fortune 100's top 20, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Chesapeake Energy Company, a company with extraordinarily high compensation.

Company	Average Director Compensation ($)⁺	Chief Executive Officer Total Compensation ($)	Separation of CEO and Chairman of the Board
Exxon Mobil	398,400	22,414,602	N
Wal-Mart Stores	225,628	30,156,490	Y
Chevron	246,684	19,271,249	N
Conoco Philips	409,831	29,391,987	N
General Electric	280,798	14,096,603	N
General Motors*	N/A	N/A	N/A
Ford Motor Company	155,713	13,565,378	N
AT&T	275,604	11,565,255	N
Hewlett-Packard	285,899	42,514,524	N
Valero Energy	262,833	10,471,795	N
Bank of America Corp.	153,018	9,959,076	N**
Citigroup	206,472	10,815,263	Y
Berkshire Hathaway	4,033	175,000	N
International Business Machines	263,014	28,524,392	N
McKesson	240,456	39,942,625	N
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.	255,691	1,000,000	N
Verizon Communications	139,901	18,573,638	N
Cardinal Health	191,258	11,060,176	N
CVS Caremark	445,407	24,102,648	N
Procter & Gamble	181,648	23,532,410	N
Goldman Sachs Group	313,923	1,113,771	N
Wells Fargo Company	252,860	13,782,433	Y
Chesapeake Energy Company	669,516	100,069,201	N

⁺To give a more accurate depiction of average director compensation, we limited the directors included in the formula. We excluded directors who did not serve on the board for all of fiscal year 2008 (because of retirement or mid-year appointment) and executives who served on the board. Additionally, Citigroup's average does not include director Hernández Ramirez

because his compensation was only for 'other compensation' including security and perquisites.

* General Motors has not filed its 2009 proxy statement.

** On April 29, 2009, Bank of America's shareholders stripped its CEO of his chairmanship; however, he will continue to serve as the company's Chief Executive Officer.

Full post as published by The Race to the Bottom on May 23, 2009 (boomark / email).