Ford CEO Jim Hackett earned $17.1 million in 2018 as profit fell

By Nick Carey

DETROIT (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co Chief Executive Officer Jim Hackett earned salary, bonus and stock awards of $17.1 million in 2018, up from $16.3 million the previous year, while adjusted pretax profit for the automaker dropped $2.6 billion from 2017, the company said on Friday.

Including pensions and perks, Hackett made $17.7 million. The company said Hackett, who took the helm of the No. 2 U.S. automaker in May 2017, made 276 times the median total compensation of all Ford employees of $64,316.

Ford Chairman Bill Ford earned salary, bonus and stock awards for the year of $12.5 million. Including pensions and perks, he earned $13.8 million.

The company reported 2018 adjusted pre-tax income of $7 billion, down from $9.6 billion in 2017.

Ford is restructuring its global operations, including recent plans to make cuts in Europe. It also has announced an alliance in commercial vehicles with Germany’s Volkswagen AG, with plans to jointly develop electric and self-driving vehicles, in moves meant to save billions of dollars.

In January Ford, the No. 2 U.S. automaker, posted a lower operating fourth-quarter profit as losses in every global region except North America weighed on results.

In a Jan. 24 email to employees after posting those results, Hackett told employees the company would not accept last year’s "mediocre" results and said Ford was aiming to nearly double its annual operating profit. He provided no time frame for hitting that target.

Hackett, told employees in that email "time to bury (2018) ... in a deep grave."

(Reporting By Nick Carey; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Bill Trott)