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Nabors CEO's 2008 Compensation More Than Doubles

The Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — The compensation received by Nabors Industries Ltd.'s chairman and chief executive more than doubled to $91.5 million in 2008, according to an Associated Press analysis of a recent regulatory filing, in a year when the oil and natural gas driller saw its net income and stock price fall sharply.

Most of the pay package given to Eugene M. Isenberg last year consisted of a cash bonus and stock grants that are worth less now than when they were awarded. His base salary was $825,000, unchanged from 2007, and he received a cash bonus of $33.6 million, up 50 percent from the prior year. He also got stock awards valued at $56.8 million when they were granted in February and October 2008 — nearly three times the value of his stock awards in 2007.

The Bermuda-based company's stock declined 58 percent last year, as natural gas and oil prices plunged amid the deterioration of the global economy and extreme volatility in the capital and credit markets.

Isenberg's total compensation for 2008 is more than 97 percent performance-based, with a significant part consisting of equity incentives that vest over time, Nabors said in its latest proxy filing.

The 79-year-old CEO also received $254,043 in perks, including $54,534 in club membership fees, $24,000 for a car allowance, and $14,499 for life insurance, the company said in an April 30 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

For 2007 Isenberg received total pay worth $44.6 million.

Nabors posted 2008 net income of $551.2 million, or $1.93 a share, down 41 percent from 2007, including writedowns and impairment charges while revenue rose about 7 percent to $5.3 billion.

The Associated Press compensation 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.