CNN/Money One for credit card only hard offer form at $9.95 One for risk-free form at $14.95 w/ $9.95 upsell  
CNNMoney.com
News > Technology
graphic
Gates gets pay hike
World's richest man gets 4% raise, with bigger payout coming from dividend jump.
September 21, 2004: 11:26 AM EDT

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, the world's richest man, got a modest pay raise over the last year, according to a company filing.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates saw only a modest rise in pay but a big jump in dividend payments during the company's last fiscal year.  
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates saw only a modest rise in pay but a big jump in dividend payments during the company's last fiscal year.

Gates, who is also the company's chief software architect, received $901,667 in salary and bonus from the company for the fiscal year ended June 30, the company revealed in its proxy filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That's up 4.4 percent from the year earlier total in salary and bonus.

But Gates' increase was lower than the nearly 15 percent rise in pay and bonus he received the previous fiscal year.

The filing shows Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer received the identical pay and bonus as Gates, as he has each of the previous two years. Neither executive received stock options

Gates was listed as the world's richest man by Forbes in March, with an estimated net worth of $46.6 billion.

Gates' personal income saw a bigger jump when Microsoft doubled its annual dividend to 16 cents from 8 cents during the 2003 fiscal year. The company's first dividend payment was made in fiscal 2003.

With 1.1 billion shares of Microsoft stock, or about 10 percent of its shares outstanding, Gates' dividends during the year came to about $175.6 million.

YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS
Microsoft Corporation
Bill Gates
Corporate Finance
Corporate Governance

This November, the company plans to pay a special dividend of $3 per share, subject to shareholder approval. The company announced in July that Gates will donate his $3.3 billion proceeds of the special dividend to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the charitable organization named for him and his wife.

The company has also announced it will now pay a quarterly dividend of 8 cents a share, again doubling the 16-cent annual dividend it paid last year. That should raise Gates' regular dividend payments to about $351 million.

Ballmer holds about 411 million shares of Microsoft stock, meaning his dividend payments during the last fiscal year came to about $65.8 million. His dividend payments this fiscal year, including the $3 special dividend, are due to come to $1.4 billion.  Top of page




  More on TECHNOLOGY
Black Friday on iPhone: There's an app for that
'Godfather of Spam' going to prison
Pen 2.0: Your scribblings go digital
  TODAY'S TOP STORIES
What Congress can do to create jobs
Stocks poised to rise
Benmosche gets $10.5 million to stay at AIG




graphic graphic

© 2009 Cable News Network. A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you. Privacy Policy
Copyright © 2009 BigCharts.com Inc. All rights reserved. Please see our Terms of Use.
MarketWatch, the MarketWatch logo, and BigCharts are registered trademarks of MarketWatch, Inc.
Intraday data provided by Interactive Data Real-Time Services and subject to the Terms of Use.
Intraday data is at least 20-minutes delayed. All times are ET.
Historical, current end-of-day data, and splits data provided by Interactive Data Pricing and Reference Data.
Fundamental data provided by Morningstar, Inc..
SEC Filings data provided by Edgar Online Inc..
Earnings data provided by FactSet CallStreet, LLC.