Honeywell International Inc., the world’s biggest maker of airplane controls, paid CEO David Cote $27.7 million in 2006 as profit and sales climbed.
Cote’s compensation included $1.61 million in salary and a bonus of $3.3 million, Morris Township, N.J.-based Honeywell said in a regulatory filing last week. The salary was 10 percent more than Cote earned in 2005, the first increase since he joined the company in February 2002. His bonus also was 10 percent more than the previous year’s.
The chief executive said Feb. 26 that he is targeting profit margins of 20 percent this year, up from 13 percent last year. He has sold units with lower earnings to replace them with higher-growth businesses such as energy services. Those moves contributed to a 27-percent profit increase last year as revenue topped $31 billion.
Cote also received restricted stock awards valued at $1.44 million, options grants valued at $7.8 million and non-equity incentive-plan compensation of $11.4 million, according to the filing.
His total pay package in 2005 was $16.2 million.
Year-over-year comparisons of compensation from stock options and stock-related performance units are difficult because a new U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rule spreads the value of executives’ grants over a number of years instead of recording their worth in the year they’re awarded.
Cote’s employment contract was automatically extended Feb. 18 for at least three more years. He joined Honeywell from TRW Inc., where he used the efficiency programs he learned during 25 years at General Electric Co. to cut costs.
Honeywell employs about 630 people in Rhode Island at the former Elmwood Sensors, in Pawtucket, now part of Honeywell Sensing and Control.
