Oracle chief pockets $700m

Just before Oracle's stock took a massive tumble last year, chief executive Larry Ellison cashed in his stock options and sold them for $700m, which set a record in business history for realised annual compensation.

Ellison's gigantic payment was revealed in a new study of compensation for senior executives at Silicon Valley's top 150 companies.

The San Jose Mercury News, which trawls through documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to figure out who gets what, said that compensation for top bosses at Silicon Valley's 150 largest companies in 2001 fell 20 per cent from the previous year.

The 776 executives brought home a total of $3.8bn, or 20 per cent less than the $4.7bn for 807 executives in the previous year's survey.

Ellison was the largest exception to the general downturn. His $700m compensation alone accounted for nearly 20 per cent of overall executive pay.

The money came from 23 million stock options that were granted a decade ago. After adjusting for stock splits, Ellison's options allowed him to buy the stock at 23 cents and sell it at between $30.03 and $32.01.

Ellison has been criticised for his timing in exercising his options. He cashed in the stock options in January 2001, just after Oracle's stock hit a 2001 high of $34.56.

He also sold additional stock worth $189m at the same time, the Mercury News reported.

A month later, the stock sank to $13.25 after Ellison disclosed that Oracle had missed sales and earnings targets during the prior quarter.

At the end of the company's financial year in May, the company's stock price had fallen more than 60 per cent.