Top list of the CEO

The chief executives of Yahoo, IBM, and Time Warner topped a list of the CEOs whose stock options gained the most in 1998. Graef "Bud" Crystal, editor of compensation newsletter Crystal Report, found that ten corporate heads saw their options jump by more than $90 million each last year. "When the market really goes up, these options turn to liquid gold," said Crystal. In the past five years, the Standard & Poor_s 500 index rose an average of 24 percent per year, with dividends reinvested. Timothy Koogle, chief executive of Yahoo, got a $488 million increase in his options last year, the most of the 191 CEOs that Crystal included in his study. L. Gerstner, chairman of IBM, saw his options jump $338 million in value, while the options of G. Levin, top executive at Time Warner, climbed $195 million.