My Home About Me

The New York Time's true crime reporter on the business beat somehow managed to overlook this story, which would seem to fall so neatly into her usual narrative about how corporate mangement enriches itself with incentives that kick in even when the company performs poorly.

Even steep losses at The New York Times didn't stop its family owners from enriching themselves and insiders with bonuses for making "profits" when there were none.

Although its board acknowledged in filings yesterday that the media company lost $3.76 per share in 2006, directors revised its bottom-line bonus formula to exclude embarrassing write-downs, converting millions in losses into instant profits of $1.58 per share.

As a result, the revisions triggered a payday clause to unleash 75 percent of the cash bonuses targeted for top executives and family members that otherwise would have been lost, filings said.

CEO Janet Robinson, 56, got an 11 percent pay raise, including stock awards, to collect $4.4 million even though the company's stock lost about 12 percent in 2006. Separately, she's amassed another $4.13 million in restricted stock.

Chairman Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger, 55, failed to meet his company's original targets based on earnings per share, but the board voted anyway to let him collect as much as $3.4 million in bonus and stock awards by using more optimistic cash flows instead of final earnings per share.

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