Wynn got $8.45M in 2008 as CEO of Wynn Resorts

Associated Press

Thursday, March 26, 2009 | 2:33 p.m.

Billionaire Steve Wynn's compensation as CEO of casino operator Wynn Resorts Ltd. fell 25 percent in 2008 as the gambling economy soured, according to an Associated Press analysis of a regulatory filing made Thursday.

Wynn's pay package in 2008 totaled $8.45 million, including $3.25 million in salary, $4.06 million in performance-based cash bonuses and $1.14 million in perks, mostly for personal use of a company aircraft, Wynn Resorts reported in a proxy statement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Wynn was not granted any stock or options in 2008. His other perks included $29,718 in life insurance premiums, $18,518 toward a medical plan and $11,795 for personal use of a driver the company employs.

Wynn's compensation totaled $11.2 million in 2007.

Wynn holds a 21.4 percent stake, or 24 million shares, in his Las Vegas-based company, which owns casinos in Las Vegas and the Chinese gambling enclave of Macau.

Kazuo Okada, the founder of Japanese pachislot and pachinko machine maker Aruze Corp., holds an even greater stake--21.8 percent of the company's outstanding shares.

Shares of Wynn Resorts dropped from $109.38 on Jan. 2, 2008 to $42.21 on Dec. 30, making Wynn's stake worth just over $1 billion as of the end of the year. The stock has fallen by nearly half since then. It closed Thursday at $22.70.

Consumers cutbacks during the recession on gambling, travel and entertainment have hit casino companies hard, coming in combination with the credit crunch. And most casino companies, which for years used easy credit to build newer, bigger resorts are rethinking their ambitious growth plans.

Wynn opened the $2.3 billion Encore Las Vegas Dec. 22 but said the opening did not significantly affect the company's fourth quarter earnings.

Wynn Resorts currently plans to open the $700 million Encore Macau casino in 2010, with 400 luxury suites and four villas. The company has said it plans to fund the project with cash on hand and revenue from Wynn Macau.

Wynn Resorts' net income for 2008 was $210.2 million, or $1.94 per share, compared with $258.1 million, or $2.43 per share in 2007. The company's revenue was $3.2 billion in 2008, compared with $2.8 billion in 2007.

The Associated Press formula for calculating executive compensation is designed to isolate the value the company's board placed on the executive's total package during the last fiscal year. It includes salary, bonuses, performance-related compensation, perks, above-market returns on deferred compensation and the estimated value of stock and options 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.