Total 20146 shareholder return: 23.4 percent
Note: Davis announced earlier this year he would retire as CEO and that Andrew Cecere would succeed him as CEO at the company's annual meeting in April. Davis will remain executive chairman.
In his final full year as CEO of Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp, Davis had the biggest payday of his career, mainly from the value of previously issued long-term equity awards that he exercised or had vested during the year. In 2015, he took home $21.7 million.
Davis has been CEO since December 2006, and during that time he has led the bank through the housing and financial crisis. U.S. Bancorp stock beat the S&P 500 Index during that time and greatly exceeded its banking peers. From December 2006 through this week, U.S. Bancorp's total return was more than 104 percent, while the S&P 500 Index had a total return of 67.8 and the S&P 500 Bank index only 3.4 percent.
Richard Davis (The Minnesota Star Tribune)