Best Buy Pays Up To Lure New CEO

NEW YORK (AP) — Best Buy is paying up for a turnaround.

Incoming CEO Hubert Joly will take home more than $15 million next year and stands to earn $16.5 million in stock grants over three years on top of salary and bonuses.

The nation's largest consumer electronics chain lured the turnaround expert with $20 million in "buyout awards" meant to compensate him for leaving benefits at his current job as CEO of Carlson, which owns Radisson hotels and the T.G.I. Friday's restaurant chain.

Joly's pay package is on the high end, but not uncommon for a new CEO expected to lift a company out of the doldrums, according to Harry Schum, a senior consultant with Compensation Resources Inc.

Minnesota-based Best Buy has struggled against growing competition and customers' shift away from big computers and TVs and toward tablets and mobile phones.

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