Question of the day: Did or didn’t GM cut Rick Wagoner’s Base Salary?

Well, depends on whom you ask. See, what started out as a simple post on GM’s decision to cut off 25% of Rick Wagoner’s base salary this year turned into a reporter’s (or rather blogger's), nightmare when we decided to crosscheck the facts. First we read an article on Automotive News (via Reuters) announcing that GM’s CEO takes a 25 percent pay cut to support turnaround, meaning that as of March 1, Wagoner's base salary was $1.65 million, down from $2.2 million in January 2006. A visit to Reuters reveals a more detailed article which adds that Wagoner's total compensation for 2006 was $10.2 million -including $3 million in option awards and $3.6 million in stock awards. -Continued: Click "Read More..." Below

Next stop, Detroit News. Whereas the two articles (Automotive News / Reuters & Detroit News) agree on Wagoner’s total compensation, the site reports that GM’s CEO received a basic salary of… $1.28 million in 2006. Note that Detroit News doesn’t talk about any cuts in Wagoner’s “wage”. Detroit Free Press on the other hand, agrees with Detroit News on the basic salary -$1.3 million, but cuts $600.000 off his total compensation ($9.6 million)!

Before we go to GM’s official site, we decide to look at Bloomberg. According to the latter, Rick Wagoner's total compensation for last year was $10.2 million, including $1.28 million in salary, $769,566 in other compensation and $6.67 million in stock options and awards. Bloomberg notes that Wagoner's salary was 42 percent less than the $2.2 million he got for 2005, due to a 50 percent pay cut he agreed to in February 2006. And here’s another surprise, Bloomberg adds that GM said Wagoner's salary for this year will be $1.65 million, restoring half of the cut! In other words, according to Bloomberg, Wagoner got a raise!

Finally we head over to GM’s site to get the official numbers: $ 1.283.333, Stock Awards: $3.574.594, Option Awards: $3.095.560, Change in Pension Value & NQ Deferred comp: $1.468.100, All other Compensations: $769.566, Total 2006 Compensation: $10.191.153. Confused? So are we and its getting really late so we’ll just let the facts talk for themselves, we think….

Data: Automotive News, Reuters, Bloomberg, Detroit Free Press, Detroit News, GM (GM Excel file)