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Frontier CEO Compensation Up 55 Percent

The Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Frontier Communications Corp. Chief Executive Mary Agnes Wilderotter received a compensation package valued at more than $7 million for 2008, a 55 percent increase from the year before, according to an Associated Press analysis of figures released in a regulatory filing.

Most of the increase, however, came in stock grants that have declined in value with the price of shares.

Wilderotter, 54, who has served as the company's CEO since January 2006, earned a base pay of $920,833, up about 5 percent over 2007, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission Monday. Her compensation totaled roughly $4.5 million in 2007.

Wilderotter's performance-based bonus dipped 2 percent to $878,611. Other perks in 2008 totaled only about $4,000. That's down sharply from the year before, when she received $370,500 in dividends on restricted stock.

The greatest increase came in stock grants valued at $5.3 million in February 2008. The company's shares traded above $10 at the time. They closed Monday at $7.61.

The Associated Press formula 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.

Frontier, formerly known as Citizens Communications Co., saw full-year profit in 2008 fall 15 percent to $182.7 million. Sales for the company, which provides telephone, television and Internet service, dropped 2 percent to $2.24 billion.