Brent Snavely

Detroit Free Press

General Motors CEO Mary Barra received total compensation valued at $22.6 million in 2016, which is about $6 million less than in 2015, but still the most of any Detroit Three CEO for the year.

Barra's total compensation for 2016 was slightly higher than the $22.1 million earned by Ford CEO Mark Fields and the $11.99 million owned by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles CEO Sergio Marchionne.

Barra, who became CEO in January 2014, is the auto industry's first female CEO.

The value of her total compensation fell by about 21% last year. The biggest difference was that Barra did not receive any new stock options awards in 2016 compared with $11.2 million in stock options in 2015.

In 2016, Barra received a base salary of $2 million, stock awards with a future value of $13 million, a $6.7 million cash bonus and $640,000 in other compensation. The real value of option awards depends on the future price of GM shares and the company's performance when she exercises those options.

[In 2016, Barra topped Fortune magazine's list of Most Powerful Women for the second consecutive year. Read more here.]

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The SEC requires all publicly traded companies to disclose compensation of its top five executives each year. All stock awards must be assigned a value even if the executive doesn't receive any cash from them for years to come.

GM, like many corporations, has been trying to tie executive pay more closely to the company's performance rather than to salaries and bonuses.

Here is what the other top four highest-paid GM executives earned in 2016:

Company financial officer Chuck Stevens earned $7.6 million compared with $8.1 million the prior year.

President Dan Ammann earned $10.2 million compared with $11.8 million the prior year.

Executive vice president and global product development chief Mark Reuss earned $8.4 million compared with $10.2 million last year.

Executive vice president and president of North America Alan Batey earned $6.4 million in 2016. His pay for 2015 was not disclosed because he was not among the top five that year.

The automaker also revealed details about its conversations with billionaire hedge fund manager David Einhorn, who has proposed splitting GM's stock into two classes to extract more value for shareholders.

According to the regulator filing, Einhorn first reached out to Stevens in August by e-mail to request a meeting in September. Stevens met with Einhorn on Sept. 15.

Additional meetings and conference calls were held in October, November and December.

Even though GM's board rejected the idea in December, Einhorn persisted and called Barra in January and continued to press the idea and told GM he planned to nominate an alternative slate of board members.

GM has flatly rejected Einhorn's proposal, saying it would create unnecessary risk for its shareholders.

GM rejects proposal from hedge fund billionaire David Einhorn

Contact Brent Snavely: 313-222-6512 or bsnavely@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @BrentSnavely.