Inman

Indymac keeps CEO with promise of up to $8.94M in pay

Indymac CEO Michael Perry could take home up to $8.94 million in salary and incentives next year under a new five-year, performance-based contract.

Indymac director John Seymour, who is the chairman of the board’s compensation committee, said Perry has done a “remarkable job” leading the company for 14 years and is “absolutely the right CEO” to lead the company into the future.

“When Mike joined the company in 1993, we had only four employees and almost no business, and we were marginally profitable,” Seymour said in a statement released today. Now, Seymour said, Indymac has more than 8,000 employees, and is the eighth-largest thrift and ninth-largest mortgage lender in the nation, exceeding $360 million in net income last year.

Under his new five-year contract, Perry could make considerably less that the $8.94 million cap. If earnings per share are up by less than 5 percent next year, Perry will make no more than $1.25 million in total compensation. If earnings per share are up 5 percent to 15 percent, he stands to make $7.41 million. Perry reaches the $8.94 million compensation cap if earnings per share increase by 17 percent or more.

Reuters polled analysts who said they expect Indymac’s earnings per share will be up 8 percent next year. Perry was paid a total of $2.48 million last year, Reuters reported.

In his last five-year contract, Perry gave up 500,000 stock options — valued at $7.5 million today — so the company could use them to recruit employees. Perry will donate 10 percent of his short-term, cash-incentive bonus to scholarships for children of Indymac employees.