The appreciation of the options is an impressive amount. Some of the CEOs deserve the rewards more than others. Each compensation number is the difference between the value of the grant when it was received and its value at the end of May 2010.

The CEOs who received these grants, along with their dollar value as of May 24, 2010 are:

Mel Karmazin of Sirius XM Radio (NASDAQ: SIRI), whose 120 million options were worth $69.6 million;

Allan Mulally of Ford Motor (NYSE: F), whose 5 million options were worth $45.2 million;

Larry Ellison, founder and CEO of Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL), whose 7 million options were worth $10.9 million;

Howard Schultz, founder and CEO of Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX), whose grant of 2.7 million options was worth $44.6 million;

Anthony Ryan of MoneyGram International (NYSE: MGI), whose 8 million options were worth $7.4 million;

Trevor Fetter of Tenet Heathcare (NYSE: THC), whose 5.5 million options were worth $24.2 million;

Kenneth Campbell the head of Standard Pacific (NYSE: SPF), who made $1.7 from 3 million options;

Eugene Isenberg of Nabor Industries (NYSE: NBR), who received 3 million options that were worth $21.6 million,

Stephen Berkowitz of Move, Inc (NASDAQ: MOVE),  whose 3 million options were worth $1.1 million,

and Dan Hesse of Sprint-Nextel (NYSE: S), who made $3.5 million from 3 million options.

To start, CEOs who made almost nothing from their grants should not be criticized. Neither should their board be for granting them options. These CEOs include the heads of Standard Pacific and Move, Inc.

Dan Hesse of Sprint-Nextel made only $3.5 million in appreciation on his grant. Sprint is in poor shape, and if its new 4G Wimax initiative does not work the company’s future is in doubt. Hesse may have caused some of the company’s problems, but he also inherited a number of them.

There should be a debate over whether extremely wealthy founders like Howard Schultz of Starbucks or Larry Ellison of Oracle should be given grants at all. Their huge ownership of stock in their companies is performance incentive enough. Nevertheless, each made very significant amounts on the value of the grants they received last year. In the case of Schultz, he has done a great deal to improve the coffee company’s prospects.

Mel Karmazin of XM Sirius also deserves his award, considering his company was at death’ s door when he joined. Karmazin arranged financing that salvaged the firm’s prospects. The stock has a 52-week low of $.40 and now trades at $.96, but was below $.10 when it appeared that bankruptcy was imminent.

Tenet Healthcare also did relatively well, but Fetter’s $24 million benefit might be excessive. The stock has outperformed the market, though, up 28% over a period when the DJIA is up only 12%.

It would be very hard for anyone on Wall Street to argue against the award received by Alan Mulally. Ford was in deep trouble when he joined, due in part to mismanagement and in part because of the economy. He kept the firm out of Chapter 11 while its rivals GM and Chrysler filed for bankruptcy. Ford’s financial results have been unusually strong over the last year.

Isenberg of Nabor is the one CEO who does not deserve his significant options profit. The company’s stock is up only 8% in the last year and has underperformed the DJIA.

Douglas A. McIntyre

The most well-known of the Elevation investments is Palm (PALM) which made a completely unsuccessful run at the smartphone business dominated by Apple (AAPL), RIM (RIMM), and handsets powered by the Google (GOOG) mobile operating system known as Android.  Wall St. had hoped that Palm’s new line of Pre handsets would allow the company to be a modest competitor in the industry. It has, instead, burned through large amounts of money and, ,by its own admission, is in trouble as it tries to reach what were fairly modest sales goals. Elevation was recently quoted by Reuters that it still has faith in Palm, a company in which it bought a 25% stake in 2007. It is astonishing that Elevation would publicly say it still has faith in a company which is close to non-existence. The results of Palm’s latest earnings release drove its shares down to $3.65. The stock traded at over $18 last September. Elevation has a total of $460 million in Palm. Whitney Tilson, managing partner of T2 Partners, a New York-based hedge fund, recently told MarketWatch, in reference to Palm, “There is a 90% chance that they go bankrupt or get acquired within a year.”

Elevation has set its money on fire by putting it into Palm (PALM), which may not survive through the end of next year, Move (MOVE) a flailing real estate listings company, and Forbes, which is losing its value due to the recession in business and consumer advertising.

Palm (PALM) traded at $8.45 late last year. It now changes hands at $1.62. As Barron’s wrote when Palm recently warned on earnings, "The Street this morning scrambled to cut estimates, ratings and price targets – with some analysts wondering out loud whether the company can survive." Deutsche Bank voiced concern for Palm’s "long-term viability."

Move is another company with severe problems. It trades at $1.13. Less than two years ago, that number was $6.60. In the September quarter, revenue dropped slightly to $61.2 million. The firm had an operating loss of $4.1 million. Wall St. obviously thinks the chances that the shares will recover are grim.

Forbes may be one of the preeminent business magazines in the world, but it has not been immune to the huge downturn in financial and luxury consumer advertising. Elevation’s investment is further compromised by the fact that Forbes is private, and there is no ready way to cash out.

Bono better go back on tour. He may need the money.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Analysts have an average price target north of $56.00, which is right in line with current share prices.   If Friday’s closing prices are any indicator and if the earnings were coming out immediately, it appears that options traders would be pricing in a move of up to $4.00 in either direction.

It will be interesting to see if the company even mentions the new competition coming soon from TheStreet.com (NASDAQ: TSCM) as it pursues its new MainStreet.com push in 2008.  We still think it was wiser for the company to partner with Move.com (NASDAQ: MOVE) like it did rather than to acquire it, and this will be the first quarter to reflect any of those efforts.

Bankrate’s 52-week trading range is $32.70 to $56.04 and this one has been doing incredibly well considering its market.  In fact, Friday was yet another 52-week high.

Jon C. Ogg
February 3, 2008

Brady Corporation (NYSE:BRC) announced that its Board of Directors authorized a share buyback program for up to 1 million shares of the Company’s common stock.

MONDAY 9/17/2007

Move, Inc. (NASDAQ:MOVE) announced that its board of directors authorized the repurchase of up to $50 million of its common stock.

LeCroy Corporation (NASDAQ: LCRY) announced that as part of its currently authorized share repurchase program, that this week it intends to commence open-market share repurchases under its share repurchase plan. In May 2006, LeCroy’s Board of Directors approved the adoption of a share repurchase plan authorizing the Company to purchase up to two million shares of its common stock. To date, LeCroy has purchased approximately one million shares under the plan. LeCroy has not purchased any shares since October 2006 when it acquired 850,000 Company shares in connection with the issuance of $72 million 4% convertible notes.

HandHeld Entertainment, Inc. (NASDAQ:ZVUE) announced that its Board of Directors authorized the repurchase of up to 1 million shares of HandHeld’s common stock, or approximately 6% of shares currently outstanding, over the following six months.

Rocket City Enterprises, Inc. (Pink Sheets:RCTY) announced that will be initiating a stock purchase program beginning immediately. The purchases will occur from time to time at the Company’s discretion.  No shares were noted as the amount, so congratulations.

CDC Corporation (NASDAQ: CHINA) said that since September 7, 2007, the date the company re-opened its trading window, the company and its subsidiaries have repurchased approximately 916,000 common shares at an average price of U.S.$7.42 per share. Since the beginning of the share repurchase program on May 2, 2006, the company has spent an aggregate of U.S.$46.8 million in connection with repurchases of the total U.S.$60 million authorized. In addition, company insiders have purchased approximately 200,000 shares, at a total value of more than U.S. $1.4 million, since September 7.

Ahold (NYSE:AHO) has repurchased 11,702,830 of its own common shares in the period from September 10, 2007 up to and including September 14, 2007. Shares were repurchased at an average price of EUR 10.1821 per share for a total amount of EUR 119.2 million. These repurchases were made as part of the EUR 1 billion share buyback program announced on August 30, 2007.  The total number of shares repurchased under this program to date is 22,258,162 common shares for a total consideration of EUR 225.7 million.

Last Friday, September 14, 2007, Brinks Co. (NYSE:BCO) capitulated.  It announced a new $100 million share buyback program, which represents just under 2 million shares at the current prices.  We feel this is the first of many possibilities that will reinvigorate shareholder values.  As such, this progressed from a watch list to an active stock in our "SPECIAL SITUATION INVESTING NEWSLETTER" which can be applied for in a trial on the link.  We offered what we feel is a more than satisfactory price target with upside, gave the reason and logic behind the call, and even went as far as offering a hedging solution with appropriate stock options for added downside protection.

If you enjoy reading about share buybacks, tune in daily around 6:00 to 7:00 PM EST as we update share buybacks every second or third day.

Jon C. Ogg produces the 24/7 Wall St., LLC Special Situation Investing Newsletter; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Just a year ago these companies would have (or maybe could have) likelyjust considered an outright merger.  But with Move being so much moretied specifically to real estate you can’t blame Bankrate for justwanting to partner with them.  In uncertain times for key aspects ofeach company’s operations, for now at least, it is cheaper to partnerthan it is to actually acquire.  This effort costs basically nothing,while merging two companies like this could be more than complicated inan environment where online financial companies have to watch theirbottom line closer than ever.

Bankrates’s market cap is $724 million and Move’s market cap is $441 million. Bankrate shares closed Wednesday at $39.37, and its 52-week trading range is $25.16 to $53.14.  Move shares closed Wednesday at $2.84, and its 52-week trading range is $2.36 to $6.69.

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he produces the 24/7 Wall St. SPECIAL SITUATION INVESTING NEWSLETTER and he does not own securities in the companies he covers.