Boston Scientific chief's compensation: $23m

The top executive of medical device maker Boston Scientific Corp. received total compensation valued at more than $23 million in 2006, a regulatory filing shows.

About $15 million of James Tobin's total came from deferred stock that could prove worthless unless his company's stock price rapidly rebounds from a 30 percent drop last year amid investor worries about Boston Scientific's $27 billion acquisition of Guidant Corp.

Tobin, the Natick company's chief executive and president, received a $927,000 salary, up 3 percent from 2005, according to a proxy filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He also received an annual cash incentive of $324,100, and $311,822 in other compensation, including $264,265 for private use of company airplanes.

The bulk of the 62-year-old's 2006 compensation came from restricted stock awards.

However, Boston Scientific's stock has languished between $14.43 and $23.96 over the past 52 weeks. The stock started 2006 out at $24.56 and finished the year at $17.18. Today, the shares fell 3 percent, to close at $15.47.

Boston Scientific's stock, which traded as high as $45 per share three years ago, fell into a slump after the company sparked a bidding war in December 2005 that derailed a standing agreement Johnson & Johnson had to purchase Indianapolis-based Guidant. The next month, Boston Scientific trumped J&J's final $24.2 billion Guidant offer with a $27.2 billion bid.

Since then, Boston Scientific has been hurt by investor concerns about product recalls and safety warnings involving Guidant's defibrillators and pacemakers, as well as legal liability for those problems and debt from the Guidant deal.

Meanwhile, sales of Boston Scientific's top-selling product, the Taxus drug-coated stent, were hurt last year by lingering concerns that the devices may put patients at slightly higher risk for blood clots than older bare-metal stents. Defibrillator sales also were hurt by the Guidant recalls.

Boston Scientific has said the deal's short-term risks are offset by the long-term increase in sales it expects from acquiring Guidant.
(AP)