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Thursday, April 24, 2014

Executive pay : Wal-Mart cuts outgoing CEO's pay 73% to $5.6 million in 2013

NEW YORK (AP) -- The pay of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s outgoing CEO fell 73 percent in 2013 because he didn't get stock awards that are given in anticipation of future performance as well as a lower performance-based bonus.

The world's largest retailer gave Mike Duke, 64, a compensation package worth about $5.6 million including a base salary of $1.4 million and a performance-based bonus of $2.8 million for the fiscal year that ended on Jan. 31.

Other compensation totaled $490,090, including retirement contributions and $144,586 for personal use of company aircraft.

Duke, who retired Jan. 31, had $140.1 million in deferred compensation at year's end, Wal-Mart said Wednesday in its annual proxy filing. That's more than $27 million over what Duke had accumulated in retirement accounts in 2013, when governance experts noted that was more than 6,000 times greater than what the average Wal-Mart employee had stashed in 401K retirement accounts.

Duke's fiscal 2014 compensation dropped more than 70% to $5.6 million from $20.7 million in the prior fiscal year, mostly due to the absence of a stock award.

Duke gained another $17 million from vested shares and nearly $2.9 million exercising previously awarded stock options.

Duke had been CEO since February 2009 and previously oversaw Wal-Mart International and Wal-Mart U.S. Before joining the company, Duke was with the Federated and May department store chains.

Wal-Mart has noted that Duke had been with the company since 1995 and that his deferred pay and compensation was tied both to a competitive marketplace and his length of service.

Duke's successor, C. Douglas McMillon, saw his compensation soar to $25.6 million from $9.5 million. The bulk of McMillon's gain came from a $23 million stock grant. Wal-Mart said the grant is tied to McMillon's promotion and payouts tied to three years of corporate performance metrics.

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