Fleet CEO Scores $11 Million Payday Amid Scandal, Merger

The top man at FleetBoston Financial Corp. was rewarded with $11 million in pay for 2003, the same year his company allowed for Bank of America Corp. to purchase it, Fleet said in an annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The salary of the CEO, Chad Gifford, was $992,000, but he also was awarded $3.78 million in stock, $6 million in bonuses and almost a quarter of a million in unrelated compensation. In 2002, he made $1.6 million altogether.

Two weeks back, the top four executives under Gifford received a total of $23.3 million in stock grants, said the report, which was filed with the SEC Tuesday.

Individually, Gifford was not the only Fleet executive to experience a huge raise from 2002 to 2003. President and COO Eugene McQuade, who made about $1 million in 2002, made $8.1 million in 2003.

The post-merger restructuring of Fleet and BoA will see Gifford slip into the position of chairman, McQuade become president and Chairman Kenneth Lewis become CEO. The merger is expected to completed in April.

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