Fortum execs maintain strong foothold at top of income list

Jorma Ollila

Aatos Erkko

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Several executives in the electricity utility Fortum joined the ranks of Finland's top earners last year, after cashing in on their stock option benefits.
      At the time when Fortum's top managers sold off their stock options in the autumn of 2004, the share price of the company had risen considerably - actually tripling since they had been granted the stock option benefit.
      Fortum CEO Mikael Lilius racked up earnings of EUR 3.5 million last year, which is the fourth highest in all of Finland. Nine current or former Fortum executives were among Finland's top 50 income earners.
     
Almost completely disappearing from the list were executives of Nokia: only two Nokia top managers, Jorma Ollila and Veli Sundbäck, were among the group.
      Nokia's absence is explained by the non-performance of the company's stock option programme. This is in sharp contrast to 2000, when all but one of the top earners were from Nokia.
      Ollila, Nokia's outgoing Chairman and CEO, was beaten in the executive income sweepstakes in 2004 by Olli Riikkala, former CEO of hospital equipment manufacturer Instrumentarium.
      Riikkala's earnings, EUR 5.3 million, are based on the company's stock options, which were cashed in when the company was sold to General Electric Healthcare in 2003. Riikkala now serves as the company's senior advisor.
     
Earned income for corporate executives rose last year from the 2003 level. However, with respect to the top ten, the income fell far behind the records set in the early part of the decade.
      The highest capital gains income - about EUR 44 million - was for Aatos Erkko, the main owner of the media company SanomaWSOY, who was also Finland's richest in terms of existing wealth.
      Coming in second in capital income was Jussi Salonoja, who has inherited the meat processing company HK.

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