NYT Co. Retracts Exec Options, Issues Correction

MICHAEL LIEDTKE

The New York Times Co. issued an unusual correction Friday to fix a mistake that indicated the newspaper publisher's board of directors didn't know the company's rules governing executive compensation.

The admission involved stock option awards and other incentives handed out in the past 19 months to Janet Robinson and Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the Times Co.'s top two executives. In addressing the problems, the company took steps to ensure both Robinson, the company's chief executive, and Sulzberger, its longtime chairman, will still have a chance to make almost as much money as the board originally intended.

The errors stemmed from limits that the owner of The New York Times and Boston Globe imposed on how many stock options and how much incentive pay its top executives are eligible to receive annually.

Under a plan adopted in 1991, the Times Co. decided its executives shouldn't get more than 400,000 stock options each year.

But the company gave Robinson 650,000 stock options in 2008 and 500,000 more options earlier this year. Sulzberger received 500,000 stock options earlier this year, too.