Motorola freezes pensions and salaries to cut costs

Motorola is permanently freezing its US pension plans from March 2009 to cut costs, which means existing benefits will be preserved but there'll be no future benefits accrued from that date. It's also said many employees won't receive a salary increase in 2009, with co-CEOs Greg Brown and Sanjay Jha taking a 25% salary cut. [Press release]

Arun Sarin to leave Vodafone with £25 million

The Times says Vodafone CEO will leave Vodafone with around £25 million in shares and bonus payments. He has 28.5 million shares and share options worth around £12 million at current prices, although they can't be sold until 2009. He also has 14.5 million shares and share options, worth £10.1 million, that can be cashed in immediately if he wants. In addition, Mr Sarin will receive a bonus of more than one and a half times his £1.3 million salary. [Sources: The Times; Telegraph.co.uk]

Vodafone has Europe's highest-paid CEO

A study from global management consultancy Hay Group says that Vodafone's Arun Sarin is Europe's highest-paid CEO. It calculated the total value of his financial rewards as €11.37 million (about £8.5 million) as of September 2007, consisting of around £3.5 million salary and bonus plus £5 million in long-term incentives. [Sources: Cellular-News.com, Hay Group pdf]