The surrogate
It begins with a woman who yearns for a baby and another who is willing and able to give her one. You can imagine the motives of the prospective parents. But what about the woman willing to carry a baby, give birth and then walk away?
Friday Night Rewind It doesn't matter which team you cheer for. We've got video previews of every high school football program in Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco and Hernando County.
Stock prices weren't the only thing to double last year at Odyssey Marine Exploration.
According to a regulatory filing Tuesday, top executives at the Tampa treasure-hunting company saw their compensation more than double on average in 2007, a year marked both by the extraordinary discovery of more than 500,000 coins aboard the "Black Swan" shipwreck and a maddening legal battle that prevented Odyssey from selling any of them.
Performance-based pay — bonuses and stock options — accounted for the vast majority of the increases.
John Morris, who served as Odyssey's CEO until his retirement this January, earned $776,005 in 2007, a 133 percent increase over 2006. His package included $325,000 in salary, a $260,000 bonus, $189,750 in stock options and $1,255 in life-insurance premiums. Greg Stemm, a former executive vice president who took over as CEO, earned $771,130, up 122 percent. Other executive officers included chief financial officer Michael Holmes ($391,530, up 74 percent), president and chief operating officer Mark Gordon ($335,332, up 137 percent) and secretary/treasurer David Morris ($330,913, up 88 percent).
The compensation increases came despite what was financially a dismal year for Odyssey. The company lost $23.8-million in 2007, or 51 cents per share, on revenues of $6.1-million.
But shareholders saw their stock rise 112 percent in 2007, thanks to the "Black Swan" discovery. And according to Tuesday's filing, Odyssey's top executives met most of the collective and individual performance targets set by the board's compensation committee.
Odyssey's four non-executive directors received roughly $100,000 apiece in compensation last year. The company's stock price closed Tuesday at $5.41 per share, up 29 cents.
Scott Barancik can be reached at barancik@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8751.
[Last modified: Apr 16, 2008 08:58 PM]
Comments on this article
by Jenny
Apr 16, 2008 8:58 PM
Performance based pay??? What performance? Huge losses, big layoffs of hard-working staff, and picked a ridiculous fight with Spain... Their only performance is making the stockholders' money disappear.
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