Fixer-up: New CEOs at troubled companies earn top pay in '07

Nearly one in 10 chief executives in the Standard & Poor's 500 was new to the job last year. Many were planned successions. For instance, Ian M. Cook, 55, replaced Reuben Mark, 69, at Colgate-Palmolive Co. when Mark retired on July 1, a date set months in advance.

Homegrown replacements like Cook, who had been groomed for the job for years, don't command above-average pay packages. He earned $8.3 million as CEO in 2007, close to the median pay for the leaders of Standard & Poor's 500 companies, according to an Associated Press analysis.

But newcomers at companies in crisis--where the previous CEO resigned hastily and the board is thrashed by red ink and beset by angry investors--charge accordingly.

With stock prices falling and whiteboards full of hard decisions to make, boards offer rich compensation packages to get the new chief on board quickly.

Consider John Thain at Merrill Lynch & Co., Vikram Pandit at Citigroup Inc. and Glenn Murphy at Gap Inc., all of whom were well compensated in 2007 for taking what amounted to high-profile clean-up jobs.

Thain joined Merrill on Dec. 1 after former CEO Stan O'Neal was ousted following steep losses and credit write-downs. Thain's total pay was $83.9 million in 2007, making him the most highly compensated CEO of the 410 companies in the AP's database.

Pandit came to Citigroup in December after former CEO Charles Prince fell to the credit crises. Pandit's 2007 pay was $3.16 million. However, Citi's board awarded him $102 million in cash, stock and options in January. If the awards had been paid in December, it would have made him the highest paid CEO for the year.

Murphy was hired by Gap in July to replace interim CEO Robert Fisher, the company's co-founder, who took the job following the exit of Paul Pressler in early 2007. Murphy's total pay, $39.07 million in 2007, ranks No. 9.

The cheapest emergency CEO comes at just $1 for the year. It's Jerry Yang, the co-founder of Yahoo Inc., who replaced Terry Semel last June when Semel was ousted over the stock's decline--and his hefty pay.