YOKOHAMA, Japan (Dow Jones) -- Nissan Motor Co. President and Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn said Wednesday that he received Y890 million ($9.8 million) in compensation and stock options in the fiscal year ended March, making him the highest paid executive at a listed Japanese company according to publicly disclosed information.

This is the first time that the car maker has released the top executive's compensation figure, as the Financial Services Agency's new rules require that publicly traded companies in Japan disclose the annual compensation of executives receiving Y100 million or more.
The amount compares with the roughly Y816.5 million ($9.0 million) that Sony Corp. chief executive Howard Stringer received in a combination of Y410 million in salary and bonuses, and Y406.5 million stock options during the just-ended business year. Nissan declined to give the breakdown of Ghosn's salary and stock option package.
The paychecks of Stringer and Ghosn, two foreign heads of major Japanese companies, are being closely watched as compensation levels for Japanese executives are usually much less than for their counterparts in the U.S. and Europe. Even so, some observers had expected the pay levels to be in line with U.S. and European standards as the two men had previously held executive positions at overseas firms.
Ghosn, who is the CEO of Nissan's alliance partner Renault, also received total remuneration of EUR1.24 million for 2009 from the French car maker, down from EUR2.63 million in 2008.
The details of executive pay at Nissan are unlikely to find favor with Japan's prime minister Naoto Kan, who criticized the automaker in a speech delivered on June 19 soon after he took office.
“Why is Ghosn's salary so high? Because he's good at firing people,” said Kan.
Five other Nissan executives, including chief operating officer Toshiyuki Shiga, each pocketed more than Y100 million in the last fiscal year, Ghosn said at Nissan's annual general shareholders meeting in Yokohama, south of Tokyo, where the company is headquartered. Shiga received Y134 million, Ghosn said.
Defending the high salaries over shouts of protest from some shareholders, Ghosn said that although Nissan's pay levels are relatively high compared to other Japanese companies, they are appropriate based on global standards. He said that the company's pay structure helps it to hire people who can contribute to increasing its earnings.
“Yes, we are a Japanese company with global management,” he said at the meeting. “We want to give our best performance to our shareholders by bringing (talented people) to Nissan.”
The CEO said at a press conference after the meeting that his compensation is “below every single average,” citing data on executive pay collected by New York-based human-resources-services firm Towers Watson.
Ghosn said the head of Ford Motor Co., Allan Mulally, received the highest salary in the global auto industry at $17.4 million last year. Ghosn added that his own pay was below the $11.7 million average for top executives in the auto industry, and lower than the $12.6 million average for executives at companies with same revenue levels as Nissan.