CFOs earn a fraction of CEO pay
Gap is smallest at healthcare firms
CHICAGO - The gap between CEO and CFO pay is growing nationally, but the difference is smaller in healthcare firms than in all other major industries.
According to an analysis of 600 public companies conducted by BDO USA, LLP, a Chicago-based accounting and consulting organization, middle-market CFOs earn an average of $927,743, around 40 percent of CEO pay ($2,338,874), with CFO pay up 19 percent and CEO pay up 25 percent over last year.
“CEOs have always earned significantly more than other executives, but we have seen an even greater divide in recent years due to an increase in CEO pay leverage tied to the performance of their company’s equity,” said Randy Ramirez, a senior director in the Compensation and Benefits Practice at BDO. “We expect CFO pay to start catching up within the next few years as the emphasis on pay-for-performance trickles down to other top executives.”
Pay varies greatly by industry, with real estate CEOs and CFOs both earning the most of any industry at $3,362,145 and $1,295,864, respectively. This is about three times the average pay of the lowest-compensated CEOs and CFOs in the banking industry at $1,037,685 and $442,425, respectively. Other top earners include executives in the technology and energy industries, while retail execs joined those in banking on the low end of the pay spectrum.
CFOs in the healthcare industry earned an average of $944,861 in 2010, which was 46.6 percent of healthcare CEO pay ($2,028,241). While the compensation gap between CEO and CFO at healthcare companies remains large, it is the most equitable of the major industries surveyed.
The BDO survey assessed trends in publicly-traded companies with annual revenues from $25 million to $1 billion in the energy, healthcare, manufacturing, real estate, retail and technology industries; and publicly-traded companies with assets between $50 million to $2 billion in the banking and financial services industries.
