Northrop CEO pay falls, still makes $17.9M

NEW YORK — The chairman and CEO of defense contractor Northrop Grumman Corp. received a pay package valued at $17.9 million in 2009, a decline of about 7 percent compared with the previous year, according to a regulatory filing last Friday.

The bulk of Ronald Sugar’s compensation came from stock and options awards valued at about $13.4 million at the time they were issued. That portion of his pay fell about 7 percent from 2008. Sugar’s base salary of $1.5 million was unchanged.

Sugar also received $2.7 million in performance-based bonus and $342,174 in perks and other compensation, which included $157,719 in travel expenses and $145,438 in contributions to a retirement plan.

Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman posted a 2009 profit of $1.69 billion, reversing a loss of $1.26 billion during the previous year. In December, the company completed the sale of TASC Inc., its advisory services business, to a private-equity firm for $1.65 billion.

Revenue during the year rose to $33.76 billion, up from $32.32 billion in 2008. The company’s stock price rose 10.8 percent to finish the year at $55.85. It has continued its rally into 2010, closing on Friday at $66.15.

The Associated Press formula for executive compensation is designed to isolate the value the company’s board placed on the executive’s total compensation package during the last fiscal year. It includes salary, bonus, performance-related bonuses, 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, which reflect the size of the accounting charge taken for the executive’s compensation in the previous fiscal year.