By Arun Kumar

Washington, Nov 16 (IANS) PepsiCo's Indra Nooyi, Motorola's Sanjay Kumar Jha and Citigroup's Vikram Pandit are the three Indian-Americans among US' highest paid CEOs listed by Wall Street Journal.

Nooyi is ranked 67th with a total pay package of $13.97 million, Jha bagged the 377th spot with a total compensation of $3.45 million, with Pandit bringing up the rear in 450th position with a pay package of $1.25 million.

Gregory Maffei, CEO of Liberty Media Corp with a pay packet of $87.1 million, was the highest paid CEO in the WSJ's study of 456 companies with annual revenue of over $4 billion.

Maffei was followed by Larry Ellison, Oracle's billionaire founder, who received a $68.6 million package and most of that reward came in the form of stock options valued at $61.9 million.

Occidental Petroleum Corp's Ray Irani bagged the third position with a total compensation of $52.2 million. At the fourth place is Yahoo's Carol Bartz who took home $44.61 million followed by CBS' Leslie Ray with $38.93 million.

Others on the top 10 list include Philippe P. Dauman of Viacom Inc ($33.7 million), Marc N. Casper of Thermo Fisher Scientific ($33.04 million), Raymond Elliott of Boston Scientific Corp ($32.1 million), Ralph Lauren, founder of Polo Ralph Lauren Corp ($27 million), and McKesson Corp's John H. Hammergren ($24.5 million).

The study by management-consulting firm Hay Group said bonuses jumped by 11 percent to a median of $1.67 million.

Overall, median total direct compensation for CEOs rose three percent during their latest fiscal year. Total direct compensation includes salary, bonuses and the awarded value of stock, options and other long-term incentives.