The top brass at Netflix get a big pay hike for New Year’s

Reed Hastings

From a compensation perspective, the New Year will be a good one for Netflix Inc. CEO Reed Hastings and other top company managers.

Late last week in a new filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Netflix, No. 9 in the 2012 Internet Retailer Top 500 revealed that annual base compensation for Hastings will increase 80% to $4.5 million in 2013 from $2.5 million in 2012.

The biggest increase is in base salary. In 2013, Netflix will pay Hastings an annual base salary of $2 million, up 300% from a base of $500,000 in 2012. Hasting’s annual compensation also includes $2 million in stock options, which remains the same.

Other Netflix top managers also will see a hefty increase in base pay next year, according to the SEC filing. The total compensation for chief product officer Neil Hunt will increase year over year 20% to $3 million from $2.5 million. Hunt’s compensation includes a jump in annual base salary of 75% to $1.75 million from $1 million.

Annual base compensation for chief content officer Ted Sarandos will increase 42.9% to $4 million in 2013 from $2.8 million in 2012 in a package that includes an annual bump in salary of 120% to $2.2 million from $1 million.

Other top Netflix managers getting a pay raise in 2013 include chief financial officer David Wells and general counsel David Hyman. The annual base compensation will grow year over year 10% to $1.1 million from$1 million for Wells and 7.7% to $1.4 million from $1.3 million for Hyman.

In its filing Netflix didn’t reveal any specific reasons for increasing the pay of some of its top corporate managers.

Netflix has yet to announce the specific date it will report its 2012 annual financials. For the fourth quarter Netflix projects net income could total $2 million or a loss of up to $13 million. The company didn’t give guidance on total revenue but expected domestic paid streaming revenue to range from $581 million to $588 million, international streaming from $90 million to $100 million and domestic DVD subscriber revenue to range from $248 million to $255 million.