Most industry CEOs took the painful cuts in 2008 and were on the mend in 2009.

And executive pay at suppliers and public retailers is bouncing back faster than auto sales, especially when it comes to bonuses.

The average CEO’s base salary did not change much from 2008, hovering around the $1 million mark. But total CEO compensation increased by nearly $1 million, averaging $3.9 million.

Equilar Inc., of San Mateo, Calif., conducted a survey for Automotive News of the compensation data of CEOs of publicly traded U.S. companies.

As in previous years, supplier executives filled the top slots on the list.

BorgWarner Inc.’s Tim Manganello received a 50 percent raise last year, making him the highest-paid automotive top executive in 2009.

Manganello made $11.5 million, with $7.3 million coming from vested stock award gains. That was almost as much as his $7.6 million total compensation in 2008.

Theodore Solso, CEO of Cummins Inc., was No. 2 at $9.9 million. Much of the total came from bonuses and stock award gains.

Lear Corp. CEO Robert Rossiter was No. 3 at $8.1 million.

The pay of Eaton Corp. CEO Alexander Cutler — who had ranked No.1 for the previous two years — plummeted from $16 million in 2008 to $6.9 million last year. Automotive operations account for about 10 percent of Eaton revenues, a spokesman said.

Despite Cutler’s high pay ranking — No. 4 — his compensation dropped 57 percent from 2009. His pay decreased in every category, but most of the damage came from diminished stock value and a sharply reduced bonus. Cutler exercised stock options that earned him $4.4 million.

Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally, at No. 18, was the only automaker CEO in the top 20, with total compensation of $3.3 million, down from $3.9 million in 2008. Ford currently is the only publicly traded U.S. automaker.

Akerson, 61, also will receive $2 million in restricted stock as part of the company’s long-term incentive plan, Detroit-based GM said today in a regulatory filing.

Akerson, a former managing director of the Carlyle Group, took over as CEO from Ed Whitacre on Sept. 1 to give GM a longer-term executive. The automaker is planning an initial public offering to begin freeing itself from government ownership. Whitacre, 68, remains chairman through the end of the year.

“Top executives in the automotive industry aren’t at the top of the compensation pyramid like they were 30 or 40 years ago,” David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan, said in a telephone interview. “This compensation is relatively small compared to other industries. I think it’s fair.”

GM, 61 percent owned by the U.S. Treasury, has had four CEOs in the past 18 months. The company received a $50 billion taxpayer bailout following its bankruptcy in June 2009.

Whitacre, who became chairman in July 2009 and CEO in December, will get $300,000 for his four remaining months on the board, according to today’s filing.

Akerson’s pay package matches one GM planned for Whitacre that was detailed in a Feb. 19 regulatory filing. Akerson’s pay was decided by GM’s board and the special master on executive compensation for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, said Noreen Pratscher, a GM spokeswoman.

GM is seeking to raise as much as $16 billion in its IPO, a person familiar with the plans said in August. That would be the second-biggest offering in U.S. history, behind Visa Inc.’s $19.7 billion share sale in March 2008.

Under a new employment agreement effective Sept. 8, the nation’s fourth-largest automotive retailer said Hesterberg will receive an annual base salary of $1 million. His 2009 base salary was $908,333.

In February 2009, in response to the industry’s sales downturn, Group 1 reduced salaries for Hesterberg, directors and other senior executives by 10 percent. Other Group 1 employees were subject to a 5 percent salary cut. At the time, Hesterberg’s salary was lowered by about $100,000 to $900,000, according to the company’s 2010 proxy statement.

Group 1 directors voted to reinstate the salary cuts in July, a company spokesman said today.

Hesterberg’s base salary may be adjusted by the company’s directors from time to time, according to a filing Thursday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Hesterberg, 57, received $3.3 million in compensation for 2009, including $1.1 million in restricted stock awards and $1 million in non-equity incentive pay.

Group 1 also granted Hesterberg 120,000 shares of restricted stock under the company’s long term incentive plan.

According to the company’s documents, 40 percent of the shares will vest on Sept. 8, 2012; 20 percent will vest on Sept. 8, 2013; another 20 percent will vest on Sept. 8, 2014; and the remaining twenty percent will vest on Sept. 8, 2015.

Hesterberg joined Group 1 as president and CEO in April 2005 after serving as group vice president for North America marketing, sales and service at Ford Motor Co.

The automaker announced Friday that Bill Ford will get $4.2 million in salary and stock options of about $11.6 million. That’s what he would have gotten, had he been paid from 2008 until now — minus a 30 percent pay cut that the company’s top executives agreed to swallow for 2009 and 2010.

“Executives are there to contribute and be rewarded in an appropriate manner,” said auto industry researcher Rebecca Lindland of IHS Automotive in Lexington, Mass. “This shows Ford is back on track and being run the way a company should be in a capital market.

“It’s a return to normalcy.”

Despite the big payday for Bill Ford, it could still be some time before the automaker is convinced its financial footing is firm enough to resume paying dividends to its stockholders. Dividends were canceled in 2006.

Bill Ford sold $28 million of his shares Friday; some will go toward repaying loans he took out in the dark days of 2004 and 2005 to buy $14 million in Ford stock, as a show of faith in the company.

Since then, crosstown rivals General Motors and Chrysler declared bankruptcy, received government bailouts, shed debt and regrouped as new companies.

Ford, however, won public favor for declining government assistance. Buyers have embraced its vehicles, which continue to improve in quality.

“Even during the difficult times for our company and the industry, I never doubted that our efforts at Ford would be successful,” Bill Ford said in a note to employees obtained by The Detroit News.

“I continued to invest in our company’s future by purchasing Ford stock, at times, taking out personal loans to do so.”

Ford’s success, he said, “is my life’s work, and I am fully confident we are on track for sustained profitable growth through our commitment to building great products, a strong business and a better world.”

In his note, Bill Ford announced he is donating $1 million to a college scholarship fund for employees’ children.

The great-grandson of founder Henry Ford announced in May 2005 that he would forgo compensation until the company showed sustained profits. The automaker was restructuring, and jobs and costs were being cut at all levels.

At that time, Bill Ford held the top three positions: chairman, president and chief executive officer. He felt an obligation to participate in the companywide sacrifices.

“It was a more prolonged downturn than anyone thought it would be when Bill made the pledge,” Ford spokesman Mark Truby said Friday.

The company’s compensation committee decided in 2008 that when the company met certain profitability conditions, Bill Ford’s compensation would be paid retroactive to Jan. 1, 2008. He will not recoup the millions he could have earned from 2005 to 2008.

When the four-member compensation committee met this week, it decided that after four profitable quarters, it was time for Bill Ford to get some back pay, Truby said.

The details were released in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

“The company is clearly performing well enough that the board felt comfortable doing this,” said analyst Joe Phillippi of AutoTrends Consulting Inc. in Short Hills, N.J.

Bill Ford and CEO Alan Mulally, who made $14 million in salary and $17.9 million total, could have their 30 percent pay cut restored when the committee meets at the end of this year to determine 2011 salaries.

Ford made $2.7 billion in 2009, its first annual profit in four years. It earned $2.6 billion in the second quarter of this year.

But the automaker has said it won’t resume stock dividends until its credit rating climbs back to investment grade — which will reduce its borrowing costs.

It’s moving in the right direction: Fitch Ratings on Friday upgraded Ford and Ford Motor Credit Co. LLC to BB- from B.

But that’s still three notches below investment grade, said Stephen Brown, Fitch’s senior director of corporate finance in Chicago.

On Monday Standard & Poor’s raised Ford’s credit rating by two notches, to B-plus, the fourth-highest junk rating, and said the company could be upgraded again over the next year. Ford’s S&P credit rating is at nearly a four-year high.

“It will take time to get up three more notches,” said Brown.

Progress will come faster, he said, if the auto industry as a whole continues to improve, and Ford keeps prices up and costs down, enabling it to break even with lower sales.

Ratings agencies want to see Ford pay down more of its $27 billion in debt. At the company’s annual meeting in May, Bill Ford confirmed the focus was on paring debt. The automaker repaid $7 billion in the second quarter.

Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota Motor Corp., wasn’t named in a company filing to Japan’s finance ministry today, indicating his compensation last fiscal year was less than 100 million yen ($1.1 million). Nissan Motor Co.’s Carlos Ghosn earned 891 million yen and Honda Motor Co.’s Takanobu Ito was paid 115 million yen, the companies have said.

Toyoda and Ito are dwarfed by their global peers, who on average earn about $12 million, according to Towers Watson & Co., a U.S. benefits consultant. Mulally led the pack with $17.9 million in 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“Because of globalization, competition is intensifying, and there is a greater importance placed on strong and decisive management,” said Katsuyuki Kubo, an associate professor of economics at Waseda University in Tokyo who specializes in compensation and corporate governance. “Without the pay incentive, Japan could lose out on competitiveness.”

Toyota’s top executives, including Toyoda, took pay cuts and gave up bonuses as the carmaker recalled more than 8 million vehicles worldwide to fix defects linked to unintended acceleration. Toyoda worried he would have to step down as president ahead of U.S. Congressional hearings on the recalls in February, he said yesterday.

“I was feeling enormous pressure and was full of anxiety as I went in to bring up the rear of this losing battle,” he told shareholders at the company’s annual meeting in Toyota City, where it is based.

Toyota’s top 38 executives received an average of 53.1 million yen each in salary and stock options for the year ended in March, the company said yesterday. That’s a 30 percent decline from the previous year.

This is the first time the carmaker has released the top executive’s compensation figure, as the Financial Services Agency’s new rules require that publicly traded companies in Japan disclose the annual compensation of executives receiving 100 million yen or more.

The amount compares with the roughly 816.5 million yen ($9 million) that Sony Corp. Chief Executive Howard Stringer received in a combination of 410 million yen in salary and bonuses, and 406.5 million yen in stock options during the just-ended business year. Nissan declined to give the breakdown of Ghosn’s salary and stock-option package.

The paychecks of Messrs. Stringer and Ghosn, two foreign heads of major Japanese companies, are being closely watched as compensation levels for Japanese executives are usually much less than for their counterparts in the U.S. and Europe. Even so, some observers had expected the pay levels to be in line with U.S. and European standards as the two men had previously held executive positions at overseas firms.

The executives include North American President Mark Reuss, Vice Chairman for Product Development Tom Stephens and President of GM Europe Nick Reilly, the company said in regulatory filings Monday.

Previously GM had only disclosed a $9 million pay-and-stock deal for CEO Ed Whitacre, $6.2 million for Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell and $5 million for Vice Chairman for Corporate Strategy Stephen Girsky.

GM officials have said the company could sell stock to the public late this year. No date has been set.

The U.S. government owns 61 percent of GM because it gave the company roughly $50 billion in aid. GM has repaid $6.7 billion, with the rest converted to stock.

Jackson’s $1.15 million base salary was unchanged, but he received a $1.7 million bonus for 2009, the company said in its annual proxy filing today.

AutoNation had awarded no executive bonuses in the prior two years. Despite posting profits for those years, the company missed predetermined targets established for 2007 and 2008. AutoNation, however, exceeded financial targets set for 2009.

The value of stock option awards to Jackson also rose in 2009, to $2.09 million. Jackson’s $5.16 million package compares with total compensation of $2.58 million in 2008.

AutoNation COO Michael Maroone earned total compensation of $3.98 million in 2009, up from $2.26 million in 2008. Maroone’s $1 million salary was unchanged. He received a $1.11 million bonus and stock option awards higher in value than his 2008 option awards.

AutoNation’s annual shareholder meeting is May 5.

AutoNation’s board of directors is urging a vote of no on two shareholder proposals. One would allow holders of 10 percent of common stock to call special shareholder meetings; the second would require an independent director to serve as chairman of AutoNation’s board of directors. CEO Jackson is AutoNation’s current chairman.

Mulally’s compensation was $1 million more than he received in 2008, even though he got less cash because of a voluntary reduction that dropped his cash pay from $2 million to $1.4 million, reported The Detroit News.

Ford swung back to a profit of more than $2.7 billion last year after years of staggering losses. So, most of Mulally’s pay increase was a reflection of the increased value of the company’s stock, which traded at about $8.50 a share when he was hired in September of 2006 and closed at $13.99 a share Monday

“When CEOs take a lot of stock, you can’t complain because they’ve got to ride it up and ride it down just like the shareholders,” said turnaround expert Van Conway of Conway MacKenzie Inc. in Birmingham.

“At $14, it’s hard not to give the quarterback a little credit here. Ford avoided a bailout. They avoided bankruptcy. And shareholders would have lost everything if they had filed.”

By comparison, General Motors Co. Chairman and CEO Edward Whitacre Jr. this year will receive a compensation package worth $9 million.

The United Auto Workers also has been a big beneficiary of Ford’s rising share price.

Last February, the union received 362 million stock warrants with a $9.20 a share strike price that made them all but worthless — then — as part of a deal to take over responsibility for hourly retiree health care. At today’s prices, however, the UAW has netted more than $1.5 billion.

“Compensation typically goes up when companies are profitable,” Conway said.

One person who has yet to receive any increased rewards is Executive Chairman Bill Ford Jr., who has been working without compensation since 2005.

Ford spokesman Mark Truby said Bill Ford, the great-grandson of Henry Ford, will continue to forgo compensation “until the board determines we’ve achieved automotive profitability for a full year.”

When that happens, his total compensation for 2009, including stock options and grants, will be $16.8 million.

Kenneth Feinberg, the Obama administration’s pay czar, said Friday that lobbying by Treasury and Federal Reserve officials helped persuade him to exempt about 12 executives from the salary cap. The pay cap will affect about 300 employees at Citigroup Inc., GMAC, American International Group Inc. and General Motors.

The move highlights tension between the government’s competing priorities: Appeasing public fury over outsized pay, while making sure the firms retain the talent they need to stay competitive and repay their taxpayer billions.

“It’s a little like you have the left half of your brain and the right half of your brain arguing,” said Douglas Elliott, a fellow at the Brookings Institution and former investment banker.

“As an owner, you can see why the government wouldn’t want to make these rules too onerous. But as a regulator, following the will of Congress, there’s an intention to hold these firms accountable and to hold down what they pay their top executives,” Elliott told the AP.

Outrage over banker salaries exploded this year after it was revealed that AIG would pay millions in bonuses to employees of the division that had toppled the company. The government provided up to $182 billion to stabilize AIG. Congress held hearings and grilled Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner about the bonuses.

The Obama administration responded by appointing Feinberg. He oversees pay packages for the top 100 earners at the companies that received the largest bailouts.

As they negotiated their pay packages, the companies warned that pay restrictions could keep them from attracting and retaining top talent. Without competitive pay, they said, it would be hard to regain their footing and repay their bailout money.