The profit at SunTrust Banks (STI) last year was half of what it was in 2007. The stock price was also cut in half, but the company's board of directors approved a 75% increase in the 2008 total compensation of CEO James Wells to $8.1 million, according to the SunTrust proxy filed late Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Financial stocks have been engulfed in a vicious downdraft, but SunTrust has until recently been held out as a bank that will weather the storm because it holds relatively few subprime mortgages and other toxic assets. But although SunTrust stock jumped 18.5% Tuesday to $9.34 a share, the stock remains down 68% in 2009, and that's on top of a 50% drop during 2008.

SunTrust spokesman Mike McCoy says the proxy vastly overstates today's value of Wells' compensation because much of it came in the form of stock options and restricted stock granted a year ago, when SunTrust shares were $64.58.

"Obviously, our stock has declined significantly since then," McCoy says.

SunTrust has received some government bailout money. It is among the nation's 20 largest banks that will be evaluated Wednesday by the Treasury Department as it conducts a so-called stress test to estimate how well the banks will hold up if the economy worsens further. The government would likely buy shares in banks it considers vulnerable.

Wells' restricted shares, worth $4.7 million when granted, were valued at $560,012 as of last week, according to the Associated Press, which calculates CEO compensation using salary, bonus, incentives, perks, above-market returns on deferred compensation and the estimated value of stock options and awards granted during the year. The calculations don't include changes in the present value of pension benefits, and they sometimes differ from the total companies list in the summary compensation table of proxy statements.

Wells' 2008 salary was $1,077,300, a 7.7% raise from $1 million in 2007. For 2008, SunTrust earned $747 million, or $2.13 per share, less than half the $4.55 a share it earned in 2007.

Bruce Ellig, a compensation adviser to corporate boards and author of The Complete Guide to Executive Compensation, said there was no justification for the salary increase unless Wells is woefully behind other CEOs in the industry. But Ellig approves of performance-based stock options that tie the CEO's future to that of the shareholder.

Wells was president of Crestar Bank when it was acquired by SunTrust in 1998. He became CEO at the beginning of 2007.