Executives

OTTAWA - Nortel Networks Corp. slashed its 2003 profit by 41 percent in much-delayed audited financial statements for 2001 to 2003 released yesterday and said an internal inquiry showed that executives had manipulated the initial results to obtain bonuses. Nortel, the biggest maker of telecommunications equipment in North America, said a dozen current executives who played no role in the manipulation would repay $8.6 million in bonuses voluntarily over three years. They will also give up the last two installments of a restricted stock payout dating to 2003.

Two former executives at a Montgomery County-based military contractor admitted in federal court yesterday that they illegally engaged an Army colonel in job negotiations while the military officer was giving the company preferential treatment. Young Y. Lee, 46, of Rockville and Lorn J. MacUmber, 67, of Gypsum, Colo., each pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt to one count of aiding and abetting a conflict of interest involving former Army Col. Richard J. Moran. Lee was president and chief executive officer of Information Systems Support Inc., and MacUmber was the company's senior vice president.

DETROIT -- A new Ford Motor Co. evaluation policy could leave some of its top 20,000 executives in a sort of cold sweat they haven't experienced since college.Ford is instituting a global performance-review system for next year that's similar to the college practice of grading on the curve: Ten percent of the executives will get A's, 80 percent will get B's and 10 percent will get C's.Those getting C's will see their raises, bonuses and stock options go to the folks who get the A's and B's. And if someone gets a C two years in a row, he or she may be demoted or fired, according to an internal company memo.

Constellation Energy Group dominated the list of the most highly paid local executives in 2007, a year in which the company's stock price rose nearly 50 percent. Leaders at the Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. parent accounted for four of the top 10 - and more than $40 million in compensation combined. Topping all other executives at publicly traded companies was Constellation Chief Executive Officer Mayo A. Shattuck III, who earned about $14 million last year in salary, stock awards, options and the like.

WASHINGTON -- Three executives of Samsung Electronics Co., which was fined $300 million for fixing the price of electronic chips used in cellular phones and computers, agreed to plead guilty to price-fixing charges and serve prison terms for their roles in the global conspiracy, the Justice Department said yesterday. The executives of the South Korean company, the world's largest chip maker, will plead guilty to participating in a scheme that included four other makers of dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, chips, the department said in Washington.

America's chief executive officers aren't the only ones who have received big raises thanks to the booming economy -- some top county officials in the Baltimore area have seen their salaries jump, too.For many officials, salaries have increased at more than twice the 4 percent average annual increase to lower-level executives in private industry.Howard County Public Works Director James M. Irvin earns $117,416, a $23,000 increase over the past four years. Robert Barrett, a special assistant to Baltimore County's executive, earns $110,000, almost double the $58,000 he earned when hired in 1994.

WASHINGTON -- Responding to investor demands for more sunlight on executive-pay practices, the Securities and Exchange Commission ordered yesterday that companies begin providing new details on corporate compensation - including stock option awards that are at the center of a widening scandal. The disclosure requirements, which will mostly take effect next year, are meant to give shareholders a "plain English" explanation of pay and benefits for top company officers. Corporate critics long have contended that too much of the information was hidden in fine print or obscured by vague language.

Before the accounting scandals at Enron, WorldCom and other companies, workers often saw themselves as management's best buddies. Gone was the old "us-against-them" mentality in which workers viewed chief executives as robber barons intent on squeezing them for every last dollar. In its place was a new world in which workers, with their stock options and 401(k) plans, saw themselves as allied with management. Management theorists talked of a New Economy paradigm in which workers would link arms with executives because they were as eager as their bosses to build company profits and stock prices.

Legg Mason Inc. paid its top six executives $10.5 million in bonuses -- up 38 percent from a year earlier -- for its fiscal year ended March 31, according to a proxy statement filed yesterday with federal regulators.Legg Chairman and Chief Executive Raymond A. "Chip" Mason's bonus jumped nearly 37 percent, to $3.67 million. He also got a salary of $249,163, up about $9,000 from the previous year.James W. Brinkley, president of the company's brokerage subsidiary, Legg Mason Wood Walker Inc., was paid a bonus of $1.65 million, up 50 percent from the previous year, on top of $223,750 in salary.

When he was running for president, Bill Clinton had relatively little support from business outside the Silicon Valley and a few traditionally Democratic corners of Wall Street. But as President Clinton, he is being surprisingly well received in corporate board rooms across the country.Since Mr. Clinton presented his economic blueprint to Congress and the nation 12 days ago, he has crisscrossed the country to meet with business leaders and seek their support. And so far, he seems to be getting it -- even though the program will inflict pain on many rich business executives and on their corporations.