1 Larry Ellison, Oracle

Ellison’s salary is just a dollar a year. Yet in 2012 he took home $96.2m, out of which $90.7m came in the form of options alone. He was also awarded an almost $4m bonus and collected $1.5m in perks. Oracle’s profits might have jumped 17 percent year on year, but its total return plummeted 22 percent.

2 Richard M Bracken, HCA

Bracken’s Hospital Corporation of America saw its profits drop by 35 percent in 2012. His pay package, conversely went up from $3m in 2011, to $38.6m in 2012. He now takes home $12m in options, on top of his $1.4m salary and $3.4m bonus. On top of all of that Bracken made over $21.9m in fringe benefits.

3 Robert A Iger, Walt Disney

Disney’s profits soared 18 percent in a year; in 2012 the company recorded revenues of $42.3bn. Iger was awarded the biggest bonus in this list, adding $16.5m to his $2.5m salary in 2012; he also took home $17.2m in stocks and options and almost another million in perks. His overall pay clocked in at just over $37m, in 2012, up from $31.4m the year before.

4 Mark Parker, Nike

Parker saw his pay package soar through the roof between 2011 and 2012. He was the CEO with the biggest increase in pay in the top five, with a hefty 219 percent increase. Though his salary is just over $1.5m, he took home over $6m in bonuses and $27m in stocks and options. Nike’s profit change, though still up, did not shoot anywhere near as fast as Parker’s; in 2011 the company recorded revenues of $24bn, with profits four percent up from 2011.

5 Philippe Dauman, Viacom

With a base salary of $3.5m, Dauman collected a bonus of $11.5m, plus an additional $12m in stocks and $6m in options. Viacom had revenues of $13.9bn during the same period, an increase in profits of nine percent from 2011, since the CEO took home 22 percent less than the year before mostly because of a slash in his bonus, Dauman is an absolute bargain.

Source: Equilar