Bed Bath & Beyond Chief Earns $8.5M in 2008

Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. CEO Steven Temares received compensation the company valued at $8.5 million during the past fiscal year, an increase of 32 percent as the company's sales inched up slightly but profit fell and its largest competitor liquidated, according to a regulatory filing.

Temares' base salary rose 20 percent to almost $1.5 million in 2008 from $1.3 million the year before, according to a filing submitted Tuesday evening to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The 50-year-old executive at the Union, N.J.-based retailer also received perks valued about $21,000, or 6 percent less than in 2007. Among others items, those included a $14,000 car allowance and a nearly $7,000 matching contribution to a deferred-compensation plan.

Most of Temares' compensation came from restricted stock and options valued at $7 million. That's about 35 percent more than the $5.2 million he received in 2007 in stock and options.

The Associated Press formula is designed to isolate the value the company's board placed on the executive's total compensation package during the last fiscal year. It includes salary, bonus, performance-related bonuses, perks, above-market returns on deferred compensation and the estimated value of stock options and awards granted during the year. The calculations don't include changes in the present value of pension benefits, and they sometimes differ from the totals companies list in the summary compensation table of proxy statements filed with the SEC, which reflect the size of the accounting charge taken for the executive's compensation in the previous fiscal year.

For the full year, the home decor chain earned $425.1 million, or $1.64 per share, down almost 25 percent from fiscal 2007, when its profit was $562.8 million, or $2.10 per share. Sales rose 2.3 percent to $7.21 billion for the year, though same-store sales fell 2.4 percent.

Bed Bath & Beyond shares fell $1.35, or 4.8 percent, to close at $26.94 Wednesday.

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