General Motors CEO Mary Barra’s 2019 compensation fell slightly, but she remains the highest paid chief executive among the Detroit 3.
Barra’s total pay package was $21.6 million last year, a decline of 1 percent – or about $240,000.
Her compensation, disclosed Monday in GM’s annual proxy statement, includes a $2.1 million base salary, unchanged from 2018; $2.7 million in short-term incentives, down from $4.5 million; and $12.1 million in stock awards, up from $11.1 million in 2018.
Amid the coronavirus crisis, Barra and other GM executives have deferred 20 percent of their salaries starting April 1. Senior leadership took another 10 percent cut and other executives took an additional 5 percent reduction. Pay for GM’s board of directors have been cut 20 percent and will not be repaid.
Barra made a few million more than the CEOs of Ford Motor Co. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, but she is the only Detroit 3 CEO who is also chairman.
Ford Motor Co. CEO Jim Hackett‘s total compensation last year was $17.36 million, down from $17.75 million in 2018, according to the company’s annual proxy statement filed earlier this month.
Mike Manley, CEO of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, received a total compensation package of $14.45 million in 2019, FCA said in a February filing.
GM’s 2019 adjusted earnings before interest and taxes fell 28.8 percent to $8.4 billion while adjusted automotive free cash flow dropped by 71 percent to $1.1 billion.
Compensation for other top GM executives rose or was flat with 2018:
- Mark Reuss, president: $8.2 million, up from $7.4 million
- Dhivya Suryadevara, CFO: $6.8 million, up from $5.5 million
- Barry Engle, president of North America: $5.1 million
- Craig Glidden, general counsel: $4.3 million
- Alan Batey, former advisor and president of North America, who officially retired in March: $5.32 million, compared with $5.34 million
Engle and Glidden were not named executive officers in 2018.
In February, GM said it had achieved about $3.3 billion in cost reductions initiated in 2018 with plans to cut another $1 billion this year.
The company said when it laid out a restructuring plan in November 2018, including plant closings and white-collar cuts, that it expected the strategy to contribute $6 billion in cash savings by 2020 — $4.5 billion in cost reductions and $1.5 billion in lower capital expenditures.
