John Thain, chief executive of the New York Stock Exchange, took home $9.4m (€7m) in cash, stock and options in 2006, the year he fended off competition from Deutsche Börse to seal with Euronext the world's first transatlantic exchange merger.

Thain was paid a basic salary of $1.8m, a $3.25m bonus, $3m of shares and $1m worth of options, the exchange said in a regulatory filing. The chief executive of the world's biggest stock exchange by value was separately given $6m of stock last month.