CEO pay $60,325,172, like the industry, is rising

PPG chief tops 2013 list after exercising stock options, nearly doubling his income from '12



PPG Industries CEO Charles Bunch had total compensation of $60.3 million in 2013.
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PPG Industries CEO Charles Bunch benefited from the auto industry's continued recovery in 2013, exercising stock options to top the list of the 35 highest-paid CEOs at publicly traded North America-based automotive companies.

Bunch's total compensation last year was $60,325,172, almost twice his $31,972,707 total in 2012, lifting him from third to first on the 2014 Automotive News/Equilar CEO Compensation Study.

   
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Bunch, like many others on the list, received the bulk of his compensation from stock option and stock award gains. Proxy statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission may not reflect similar compensation totals because they often record the value of stock awards or options on the day they are granted, while Equilar Inc., the company that created this list for Automotive News, uses the value of the awards when they are vested and the value of the options when they are exercised.

With a base salary of $1,350,833 in 2013, Bunch received $36,260,245 in stock options -- more than his total compensation in 2012.

The large stock gains for automotive company CEOs reflect the market's performance as a whole, said Aaron Boyd, director of governance research for Equilar.

"The amounts are not surprising because we saw the market do really well last year," Boyd said. "S&P 500 stock returns were around 30 percent. When stock prices are going up, the value of awards that are vesting will be higher, and people will be more likely to exercise their options."