CEO Pay Watch: Piper Jaffray's Andrew Duff made $7.4 million

Position: Chairman, retired CEO

Total compensation: $7,394,954 for year ended Dec. 31, 2017

Salary: $650,000

Nonequity incentive pay: $2,472,250

Other compensation: $159,231

Value realized on vesting shares: $4,113,473

CEO Pay ratio: 34:1

Median employee pay: $148,779

Total 2017 shareholder return: 21.2 percent

Note: Duff retired as CEO of Piper Jaffray on Dec. 31 after a 37-year career at the Minneapolis-based investment bank and asset-management company. The 60-year-old Duff was CEO of the company for 17 years and led its spinoff as an independent public company from U.S. Bancorp on Dec. 31, 2003.

Duff led a transition at Piper, putting more emphasis on its higher-margin advisory businesses during the last several years. The company has responded by reporting record adjusted net revenue for the fourth year in a row. Piper finished 2017 with $869.6 million in adjusted net revenue and $7.14 per share in adjusted net income per share, a 52 percent increase over 2016.

In his final year as CEO, he earned the largest compensation package of his tenure. Duff made $7.4 million, up 21.6 percent over 2016.

Duff's base salary of $650,000 has remained the same for the last seven years. But in 2017 he exercised $4.1 million worth of previously issued restricted stock awards.

In 2016, the board's compensation committee, responding to shareholder feedback, added more performance criteria to restricted stock awards it grants to executives and capped the amount of its annual cash-based incentive award to three times the annual salary.

During his tenure as CEO, Piper's stock has had a total return of 92.1 percent. In the past three- and five-year time horizons, it has finished in the top quartile among its peer group.

Chad Abraham was named Duff's successor as CEO; Duff will remain chairman of the board.

Patrick Kennedy