Charter Communications President and CEO Tom Rutledge pocketed a modest 1.6 percent raise in 2015, bringing home $16.4 million in compensation, according to a Charter (NASDAQ: CHTR) SEC filing.
Rutledge took home $2 million base salary, about $1 million in stock awards, $9 million in options, $4.2 million in non-equity incentives and another $205,436 in the form of "other compensation." (The latter mostly accounts for his use of the company plane.)
Rutledge ranked as the pay-TV industry's sixth highest paid executive in 2014, with his $16.1 million in total compensation coming in at less than half of what list leader Rob Marcus, Chairman and CEO of Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC), took home ($34.6 million)
With Charter's $55 billion takeover of TWC set to gain approval from the FCC, both Rutledge and Marcus stand to make substantially more money in 2016.
For his part, Rutledge signed a new employment agreement last month that runs through February 2017 and increases his target bonus to 300 percent of his base salary, among other enhancements.
News of the CEO's pay increase comes as outside interest continue to try to stop regulatory approval of Charter's ongoing merger bids.
On Thursday, the consumer group Common Cause urged the FCC to reverse course and block the merger. Meanwhile, John Conyers (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary, urged the FCC to make conditions imposed on Charter "durable and enforceable."
For more:
- read this Charter SEC filing
- read this Deadline Hollywood story
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