In the Philadelphia area, "most of the compensation is weighted toward cash as opposed to equity," Cwirko-Godycki said. Locally, the trend - 39.8 percent in equity and 60.2 percent in cash - almost exactly mirrors Roberts' compensation.
In large Standard & Poor's 500 companies, Cwirko-Godycki said,
"a lot of times you see the reverse situation."
That, he said, is probably a reflection of the smaller size of the companies in the Philadelphia sample. Larger firms tend to have longer-term goals and pay their executives in ways that motivate them to meet those goals.
Equilar uses data in company proxies filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to calculate total compensation based on what the company offers the executive each year.
That includes salary, bonus and other compensation, as well as options and stock granted, regardless of when the executive might be able to exercise them.
Roberts received an $11.4 million bonus on top of a relatively small salary of $2.5 million and other compensation of about $2.9 million.
Like Roberts, most of the chief executives who are among the region's most highly paid also lead the region's largest companies - at least measuring by annual revenue. Comcast had $25 billion in 2006 revenue.
Ivan G. Seidenberg earned $20.2 million as head of Verizon Communications Inc., an $88.1 billion company. And CVS Caremark Corp.'s chairman, president and CEO, Thomas M. Ryan, brought in $17.8 million. Company revenue is $43.8 billion.
But then there are the others:
Cephalon Inc. chairman and CEO Frank Baldino Jr.'s compensation totaled $14.3 million. The company's revenue was under $2 billion. Baldino founded the company in 1987.
