Pearl Meyer, the consultancy, found that the chief executives of 50 large US groups received average pay of nearly $11m (€8.3m) last year, up 5% on the year before. The typical salary was unchanged at $1.2m, with incentive pay making up the balance.

However, there has been a considerable shift in the make-up of incentive awards, with stock options largely replaced by share grants. Stock option grants declined from more than half of total chief executive pay in 2003 to little more than a third last year. That decline was balanced by a rise in grants of full-value stock and performance-based incentives.