GREENWICH, Conn. (Jan. 5, 2015) — As the lid closed on another year, CEOs of privately held companies expected to see their total cash compensation bump up slightly.
CEOs received a median total compensation package of $360,000 in 2014 — including base salary, bonus, benefits, new equity grants and equity gains. That total cash compensation figure was expected to increase 3.1 percent in 2015, according to Chief Executive Research's latest “CEO and Senior Executive Compensation Report for Private Companies.”
The median base salary was $250,000, a 2.8-percent increase for this cohort over the prior year, while the median bonus was $75,000, a 3.3-percent increase over the same year-ago period. Median cash compensation increased 2.9 percent, while CEOs in the 75th percentile saw a 4.8-percent increase, according to the study.
Top quartile total CEO compensation was 81 percent above the median, while bottom quartile total compensation was 57 percent of the median.
CEOs, HR executives, boards of directors and investors/owners use Chief Executive Research's private company executive compensation report to negotiate and support executive compensation packages and ensure that they are remaining competitive in the marketplace.
The report noted that, as expected, a CEO's compensation is largely correlated to the size of the enterprise he or she leads. CEOs who run private companies with revenue between $1 billion and $10 billion earn nearly 10 times more than CEOs of companies with revenue under $2 million. The ratios vary, however, by compensation component.
For instance, the median base salary for the larger company CEOs was 4.5 times greater than the CEOs of the companies with revenues under $2 million, while the gap in bonuses was 12 times greater.