SBC Offers CEO $21-Million Retention Bonus

SBC Communications Inc., parent of Pacific Bell, said it will pay Chief Executive Edward Whitacre $21 million over two years if he stays at the helm of the nation’s largest local phone company. That retention and performance bonus follows a retention award Whitacre received in 1998 in the form of stock worth $77.7 million at today’s prices. Whitacre’s latest retention bonus comes on top of $18.1 million worth of salary, incentive bonuses and options the executive got last year for presiding over what San Antonio-based SBC calls a transformational period. Details of Whitacre’s pay package were disclosed in a proxy filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Whitacre’s salary rose to $1.4 million in 1999 from $1.2 million in 1998 as part of an effort to compensate managers for their increased responsibilities resulting from SBC’s acquisitions, the filing said. SBC stock fell 9% in 1999.