Google Inc. said on Friday its board of directors had agreed to pay executive officers a bonus of up to $1.5 million total for 2006, but it was not clear if the plan applied to the billionaires who started the Web search leader.
Co-founders and Presidents Sergey Brin and Larry Page and Chief Executive Eric Schmidt received salaries of $1 each in 2005 and were not included in a separate 2006 plan for executive bonuses of up to $3 million each filed with federal regulators in October.
The company said on Friday in a regulatory filing that a committee would determine how to allocate the bonus, which are in addition to payments in the plan from October.
In 2005, four Google senior vice presidents received bonuses ranging from about $636,000 to nearly $838,000, according to a recent proxy statement.
Schmidt and Page received bonuses of $1,630 while Brin earned a bonus of $1,723, and all three received further compensation, chiefly tied to use of chartered aircraft in 2005.
During 2006, Google stock gained about 11 percent, slightly ahead of a
10 percent rise in the Nasdaq exchange.Earlier this week, Google said quarterly profit nearly tripled, helped by a lower tax rate and expense controls, and that revenue jumped 67 percent to $3.21 billion.
Revenue growth is closely watched as investors gauge Google's ability to capitalize on Web advertising against rivals such as Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp.
Copyright 2007 Reuters Limited.
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