Board Awards Ford's Ford $18 million and Ford's Padilla $6.8 Million Bonus' in Shares

DETROIT, March 14, 2005; Reuters reported that Ford Motor Co. granted Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Bill Ford Jr. $18 million in restricted shares and stock options in compensation last week, the automaker said on Monday.

For last year's performance, the automaker's board awarded Bill Ford with 600,720 restricted shares valued at $7.5 million in lieu of a cash salary and a bonus of 240,288 restricted shares valued at $3 million.

As an incentive for future performance, Bill Ford was also awarded a long-term stock option grant covering 1.68 million shares with a strike price of $12.49, Ford spokesman Oscar Suris told Reuters on Monday.

The options, a third of which will be exercisable in a year, were valued at $7.5 million, Suris said.

Bill Ford, whose great-grandfather founded Ford 100 years ago, has forgone a cash salary since the company ousted former CEO Jacques Nasser in 2001.

Ford saw its net income rise seven-fold to $3.48 billion in 2004 from $495 million in the previous year.

Bill Ford said he intends to donate his 2004 bonus, or $3 million. Half will go to a scholarship program he set up for the children of Ford's U.S. employees and the other half to local charities.

"This award from the Board was in recognition of my 2004 performance, and I very much appreciated it," Bill Ford said in a letter to employees on Monday. "But funding scholarships for employee's children seems appropriate since in the end my performance is really a measure of your efforts."

The company's president and chief operating officer, Jim Padilla, was awarded $6.8 million in common shares, restricted shares and stock options last week.

Padilla received 246,696 restricted shares worth $3 million as compensation for his 2004 performance. He also received 83,000 unrestricted shares worth about $1 million at Friday's closing price of $12.39 on the New York Stock Exchange.

These are in addition to his cash salary, which will be disclosed in the automaker's annual proxy in April.

As an incentive for future performance, Padilla was granted 629,213 in stock options, a third of which would be exercisable in a year. The options, which have a strike price of $12.49, were valued at $2.8 million, Suris said.