Normally, running a smaller company translates into smaller compensation for an executive.
But at several Colorado corporations, a small market value, declining revenues and big losses didn’t prevent million-dollar-plus pay packages.
Denver-based Evergreen Energy, for example, paid its new CEO Thomas Stoner Jr. $3.5 million last year, despite losing $56.6 million and having only $2.2 million in cash on the books.
About $2.9 million of Stoner’s compensation, however, came in stock awards rather than cash. Still, that grant is big compared with Evergreen’s recent market value of $25 million as of June 15.
At Penford, a Centennial maker of food additives and ethanol, CEO and president Thomas Malkoski reported compensation of $1.3 million and most other executives made more than $500,000.
Shareholders, however, got a $64.8 million loss and 14 percent decline in share value.
At Ascent Solar Technologies in Thornton, directors felt they needed to boost compensation to attract a top-level CEO to move the company from research and development to manufacturing, said chief financial officer Gary Gatchell.
Ascent brought in Farhad Moghadam, an executive with experience at Intel and Applied Materials, and paid him $2.8 million, including $1.9 million in stock options.
“He has a lot of skin in the game with his package,” Gatchell said.
And sometimes, appearances can be deceiving. Arca Biopharma, a Broomfield maker of heart drugs, acquired a company called Nuvelo in January 2009.
Arca honored the compensation agreements of Nuvelo’s CEO Ted Love, reporting his compensation of $4.9 million, more than 10 times what Arca CEO Michael Bristow received.
Derek Cole, Arca’s vice president of investor relations, said the large payout wasn’t really that large.
Love did receive $1.8 million in cash severance, but he also had $2.9 million in options that vested with the acquisition. The strike price of those options is in the triple digits, Cole said, a far stretch from the company’s closing stock price of $3.87 on Thursday.
In some cases, investors may not mind. Golden Minerals reported $1.8 million in compensation for CEO and president Jeffrey Clevenger last year.
The Golden-based developer of silver and other mining properties, came out of bankruptcy at 2 cents a share and ended 2009 at $9.70 a share.
Aldo Svaldi: 303-954-1410 or asvaldi@denverpost.com
