Ford raises fields’s pay 82% as mulally makes $22 million

By Bloomberg
Ford Motor Co. boosted Mark Fields’s 2014 compensation 82 percent to $18.6 million as he took over as chief executive officer from Alan Mulally during a year when profit declined on new-model spending and overseas losses.
Fields, 54, who was promoted to CEO July 1, got $1.66 million in salary, $3.19 million in bonus and $13.7 million in other compensation, Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford said Friday in a regulatory filing. His total in 2013, when he was chief operating officer, was $10.2 million. Mulally was paid $22 million last year.
Fields faces several challenges as he seeks to keep Ford rolling after Mulally engineered a turnaround in his eight years leading the company from near bankruptcy to record profit. Net income fell 56 percent last year to $3.2 billion as Ford introduced a record 24 new models, and turmoil in Russia and South America contributed to wider international losses.
“Fields might have a harder job than Mulally had when he started,” said Bernie McGinn, CEO of McGinn Investment Management in Alexandria, Virginia, which holds about 400,000 Ford shares. “He has to follow a legend and make sure things continue to look shiny. I think he’s done a good job.”
Board’s Goals
Top executives reached 91 percent of the targets set for them by Ford’s board, according to the proxy filing. That included 44 percent for automotive revenue, 68 percent for automotive operating margin, 120 percent for automotive operating cash flow, 113 percent for Ford Credit pretax profit and 132 percent for quality.
“The product line is good, he’s just got to continue to work hard,” McGinn said of Fields. McGinn said he gets mad “every time the stock almost touches $18 and then goes back to $15, but you’ve got to like the company.”
Ford shares rose 0.5 percent in 2014, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index gained 11 percent. They slid 0.2 percent to $15.98 at the close today in New York and have fallen 7.3 percent from when Fields became CEO.
Ford scheduled its annual meeting for May 14 in Wilmington, Delaware. Shareholders will vote for the 11th consecutive year on a proposal to strip the Ford family of its 40 percent voting control of the automaker and move to one vote per share. The measure is opposed by the company’s board, which includes two family members, Executive Chairman Bill Ford and his cousin Edsel Ford II.
Pretax profit last year was $6.9 billion in North America and $589 million in its Asia-Pacific region. Ford posted a $1.1 billion pretax loss in Europe as political upheaval in Russia led to a collapse in the auto market. The loss in South America was $1.2 billion, amid economic instability.
Mulally’s Millions
Mulally, 69, received $1 million in salary, $3.19 million in bonus and $17.9 million in other compensation for last year. In 2013, his final full year as CEO, his total was $23.2 million.
Mulally earned more than $343 million in his eight years at the automaker, after arriving from Boeing Co. in 2006. That total includes special stock grants, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
By comparison, the Detroit Lions awarded Calvin Johnson an eight-year contract in 2012 worth as much as $132 million, making him the highest-paid receiver in the National Football League at that time. The Lions are owned by Martha Firestone Ford, mother of Bill Ford.
Bill Ford got compensation of $15.1 million last year, up 26 percent from $11.95 million for 2013. The 57-year-old great- grandson of founder Henry Ford received $2 million in salary, $910,000 in bonus and $12.2 million in other compensation.
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