Carnival boss made $7.2m last year
NEW YORK (AP) — The chairman and CEO of cruise operator Carnival Corp. received compensation worth $7.2 million in fiscal 2009, a 51 percent jump from a year ago, when he did not receive a performance bonus.
Micky Arison received a base salary of $880,000 for 2009, according to a regulatory filing, flat with the prior year. He received a $2.2 million performance-based bonus.
He also received restricted stock awards valued at $3.6 million on the day they were granted.
Arison got other compensation totalling $496,513, including personal use of the company aircraft, personal use of sporting event tickets, health insurance costs and premiums, automobile leases and a driver and security.
The AP's total pay calculations 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 calculations don't include changes in the present value of pension benefits, and they sometimes differ from the totals companies list in the summary compensation table of proxy statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
As consumers cut spending because of fears about jobs and the economy, cruise lines have reduced ticket prices, hoping to keep ships full. That strategy has cut average industry prices by around 30 percent. Ongoing deep discounts on cruises and slower bookings have hurt Carnival's results.
For the fiscal year ended November 30, Carnival's profit fell nearly 22 percent to $1.8 billion, or $2.24 per share. Full-year revenue fell 10 percent to $13.16 billion.
Still, Carnival's stock price rose by about 52 percent during the fiscal year ended November 30.