Schwab to pay $12.1M to U.S. Trust exec

Schwab to pay $12.1M to U.S. Trust exec

	Published : Fri, 30 Mar 2007 23:36 By : Agencies Print this Story

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The executive running Charles Schwab Corp.'s U.S. Trust division will receive $12.1 million in cash and stock after the stock brokerage sells the wealth management subsidiary to Bank of America Corp. later this year.

The San Francisco-based company disclosed the planned payment to Peter Scaturro, the head of U.S. Trust, in documents filed Friday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Scaturro's award will exceed the $8.35 million that the stock brokerage paid in compensation to its chief executive, Charles Schwab, for steering the company to a record profit of $1.24 billion last year. The performance helped lift Schwab's stock price 32 percent last year to boost shareholder wealth by about $5 billion.

Charles Schwab's 2006 compensation consisted mostly of $4.25 million for reaching long-term incentives and 540,541 stock options valued at $3 million on the date of the grant. The brokerage also paid its 69-year-old founder a $900,000 salary and $200,845 in miscellaneous compensation that included $170,093 for security.

The Associated Press calculates executive pay based on salary, bonuses, incentives, perquisites, above-market returns on deferred compensation and the value of stock options and other awards granted during the year. This figure usually differs from the total compensation listed in proxy statements.

Scaturro's upcoming windfall is part of a retention agreement negotiated last November when Schwab struck a deal to sell U.S. Trust to Bank of America for $3.3 billion. If the deal closes as planned during the third quarter, Scaturro will be paid $8.95 million in cash and 172,861 shares of Schwab stork worth $3.16 million as of Friday. Bank of America has said it plans to retain Scaturro, who took over the reins of U.S. Trust in 2005 after leaving Citigroup Inc.

U.S. Trust, which caters to multimillionaires, didn't hit its revenue targets last year, according to Schwab's Friday filing.

But the brokerage's investors services division offset U.S. Trust's shortfall by increasing its 2006 revenue by 18.3 percent, outstripping management's goal of 12.5 percent.

Charles Schwab has been on the upswing since its founder returned to the CEO job in July 2004.