Diller's paycheck ranks among highest

The chief executives of the 500 biggest public companies in America took a $3.1-billion pay cut last year, but electronic commerce mogul Barry Diller did pretty well for himself.

Forbes named the 61-year-old chairman of USA Interactive, which owns Home Shopping network in St. Petersburg, the nation's fifth-highest-compensated chief executive.

Diller's $53.1-million paycheck included only about $754,000 in cash. The rest of it was in stock options and appreciation of his controlling interest in the company.

Diller has preferred to tie performance incentives for top executives to stock rather than cash. As a result his salary and bonuses dropped 77 percent in 2002. This year his company's incentives for top managers are being shifted to restricted stock.

Jeffrey Barbakow, chief executive of Tenet Healthcare, topped the Forbes list with income of $116-million. The three others who outearned Diller were Dwight Schar of NVR, a home builder and mortgage banker; Michael Dell of Dell Computer; and Irwin Jacobs of Qualcomm.

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