DENVER – First Data made it beneficial for its CEO Henry ‘Ric’ Duques to end his brief retirement to come back and sell the company in one of the biggest leverage buyouts ever. Duques, who retired in 2003, only to be coaxed back to head the company two years later, exercised 4.1 million options last year to realize a whopping $96.2 million gain, according to the company’s annual proxy statement. Coupled with salary and bonuses and shares earned in the last fall’s spin-off of Western Union, the on–again, off-again First Data chief earned almost $100 million. And with First Data’s agreement to sell out to private equity fund Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. at a 26% premium, that brings the value of Duques’ 2006 haul to close to $130 million.
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