This year the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of the top 500 American companies earned a total of $5.4 billion or had an average salary of $10.9 million. There was also an average of $5.6 million in exercised stock options for each boss. Leading CEO's only had a small wage rise of just 6%, which is unimpressive when compared to the massive 54% wage rise in 2004!

The top 5 paid CEOs received the bulk of their compensation through exercising stock options. Richard Fairbank of Capital One Financial topped the list with a total of $249.42 million, which included $249.3 in exercised stock options. The remaining top 5 executives had similar ratios when it came to stock options and their total pay.

Forbes business magazine also compared the real value of CEOs, checking to see if they are worth what they are paid. While some received impressive financial compensation year after year, their results for the company were sometimes much less impressive. The Chief Executive Officer of the housing products manufacturing company Masco, Richard Manoogian has continued to receive a salary of $9 million annually over the past 6 years, even though his company has continued to under perform in its sector. While at the other extreme, there were CEOs like John Bucksbaum of the real estate trust fund, General Growth Properties who have received an average of just $624,000 annually over the past 6 years and has achieved an impressive 37% return for shareholders year after year.

The bosses of big business will also find it harder to hide their pay next year when the Securities and Exchange Commission introduces new rules that make the process more transparent. Currently a company can hide perks of up to $50,000 and they don't have to identify the individual that takes them. New rules from the SEC will force perks of up to $10,000 to be disclosed and identified. Other tricks that high earning CEOs use to hide their real earnings include deferring compensation, the valuing of stock options, pensions, change in control agreements, and dividends on restricted stock.

Large CEO salaries are talked about by the media and often criticized by the average man on the street, but if the pay matches the performance, very few investors complain.

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