GM gives Wagoner 40% pay boost

General Motors Corp. boosted CEO Rick Wagoner's total compensation by 40 percent to $14.4 million in 2007, a year in which the automaker lost money for a third straight year but also slashed costs and brokered a historic labor deal with the United Auto Workers union.

Wagoner's salary of $1.56 million last year was 22 percent higher than the $1.28 million the No. 1 U.S. automaker paid him in 2006, the company reported Friday.

It was still less than the $2.2 million Wagoner, 55, made before taking a voluntary pay cut in 2006. He will earn $2.2 million in salary this year. By comparison, Ford Motor Co. Chief Executive Alan Mulally earned about $22 million in overall compensation last year.

Most of the rise in Wagoner's overall compensation was due to an increase in the value of his pension and incentive plan payments, GM said in a proxy statement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.