Thermo execs pay, bonuses approach $8m

Thermo Fisher Scientific will pay its five top executives a total of more than $3 million in 2007 and award them some well over $4 million in bonuses for 2006.

The company announced on Friday that Chief Executive Officer Marijn Dekkers alone would receive slightly more than $1 million in as his base salary this year, and some $2.1 million in bonuses. All told, the five executives will be paid a total of $3.1 million and receive bonuses of $4.7 million.

None of the executives are from the Hampton, N.H.-based Fisher Scientific, which Thermo Electron, headquartered in Waltham, Mass., acquired last November, even though former Fisher stockholders own about 61 percent of the company.

Only Paul Meister ended up in a leadership position in the merged entity, as chairman of the board. His salary, as were the salaries for two Fisher executive holdovers – Alan Malus, senior vice president, and Joseph Massaro, senior vice president of Global Business Services – were not detailed.

But as Thermo Fisher’s annual report summed up, former executives and board members won’t be left out in the cold. They received most of $36.7 million in accelerated options. The company had to actually liquidate assets totaling some $40 million to fund Fisher retirement payouts, the statement said. In total, the total stock-based compensation cost of $69.4 million, most of that going to Fisher executives.

The company in an apparent show of confidence, also announced that it will repurchase up to $300 million of common stock through February 2008.

It also said its valuation of total assets — $21.2 billion — depends on nearly $10 billion of “good will” and “indefinite-lived intangible assets,” primarily from numerous companies both Thermo and Fisher acquired over the years culminating in the Thermo Fisher conglomeration, which resulted in $6.4 billion of good will alone.

In addition, the company has approximately $2.7 billion in debt. That debt is on a company that earned some $3.8 billion in revenues in 2006, and a net income of $168.9 million (84 cents a diluted share) in 2006.

The annual filing does not mention what Thermo Fisher plans to do with the 100,000 square feet of office space in Hampton that served as Fisher’s former headquarters. The merger deal pledged that it would kept open for at least three years. – BOB SANDERS