AP Features, March 16th, 2007
Genentech Inc. Chairman and Chief Executive Arthur Levinson collected compensation the company valued at $16.5 million in 2006, a year in which the world's largest biotechnology company by market capitalization continued explosive sales growth of its cancer-fighting drugs.
According to the company's proxy statement filed Friday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Levinson received just under $1 million in salary for the year, plus $2.7 million in bonuses for meeting long-term and short-term objectives. The filing said Levinson declined a raise in his base salary for 2006.
He was granted stock options that had an estimated value of $12.4 million on the day they were granted.
In addition, Levinson received nearly $443,535 in perquisites, including $191,617 for security at Levinson's house and a $15,400 contribution to his retirement fund.
The Associated Press calculations of total pay include executives' salary, bonus, incentives, perks, above-market returns on deferred compensation and the estimated value of stock options and awards granted during the year. The may vary from totals that companies report.
According to the proxy, Levinson also exercised 100,000 shares of stock options worth a pretax gain of $6.9 million in 2006.
South San Francisco-based Genentech has been reporting double-digit growth in each of the last four years and its stock has risen more than 40 percent in the last three years. The biotechnology pioneer's growth has been fueled by three drugs that treat non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, colon cancer and breast cancer that combined for $5 billion in sales last year.
For 2006, the company reported earnings of $2.1 billion, a 65 percent increase over 2005.
The company said in January it expects 25 percent to 30 percent growth in 2007.
