C-Suite

Pfizer Inc. nearly tripled CEO Ian Read's compensation in 2011, his first full year as top executive of the world's largest drug maker, which has been cutting costs and making other moves to compensate for generic competition hurting sales of top medicines.

An Associated Press analysis of documents from Wells Fargo shows CEO John Stumpf received $17.9 million in compensation for 2011, compared with $17.6 million in 2010.

Fiat says CEO Sergio Marchionne, who also heads Chrysler, received total compensation of euro14.45 million ($18.87 million) last year, mostly in stock options.

Former New York Times CEO Janet Robinson retired from the newspaper publisher late last year with a severance package valued at about $23 million.

The government says it will cap pay for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac chief executives at $500,000 per year and eliminate annual bonuses for all employees. The changes come after Congress pressured the government to stop big payouts at the bailed-out mortgage giants.

Citigroup's CEO Vikram Pandit received $14.8 million in total compensation for 2011, according to an Associated Press analysis of a regulatory filing.

Coca-Cola Co. gave its CEO a pay package worth $21.2 million last year, up 10 percent from the previous year, as the world's biggest soda maker sold more of its drinks and expanded overseas.

Business executives are becoming more confident about the U.S. economy as well as their own organizations, according to the first quarter AICPA Economic Outlook Survey, which surveyed chief financial officers, controllers and other certified public accountants in executive and senior management accounting roles.