Best Buy CEO Sees Pay Drop 60 Percent

Best Buy Co. Inc.'s retiring CEO, Brad Anderson, received compensation the company valued at $1.3 million, a plunge of 60 percent from the previous year as the consumer electronics retailer cut jobs and offered buyouts for corporate staff.

Anderson, also vice chairman of the world's largest consumer electronics chain, earned 60 percent less in the 2009 fiscal year, mostly because he and other executives did not receive a performance bonus, according to a regulatory filing submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday.

In 2008, Anderson took home $3.2 million, which included a nearly $2 million performance bonus.

The 59-year-old earned a base salary of nearly $1.25 million, a 6 percent increase from the previous year's salary of $1.17 million. He received no options or restricted stock in fiscal 2009, though other Best Buy executives did. He also received no options or stock in fiscal 2008.

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 SEC, which reflect the size of the accounting charge taken for the executive's compensation in the previous fiscal year.

He also received nearly $16,000 in other perks, about 2 percent less than last year.

That included about $8,600 in matching retirement contributions, about $5,800 for life and long-term disability insurance coverage and $1,500 for tax planning.

Anderson is to be replaced in late June by current president Brian Dunn, who is Best Buy's chief operating officer.