In a story about the compensation of Steve Burd, Safeway's chairman, president and chief executive officer (April 17 SN, Page 49), SN omitted a comment from Brian Dowling, a spokesman for Safeway, due to an editing error. The article cited a study by The Corporate Library, Portland, Ore., which listed Burd as among the most overpaid executives relative to stock performance. Dowling said: "We strongly disagree with The Corporate Library methodology. The reason Steve Burd got on the list is that he exercised some expiring options in late 2003 and early 2004 - the first he'd exercised and sold since he joined the company in 1992. When our performance lagged, he earned no operating bonus. We have experienced 17.5% compound annual share price growth since he joined Safeway, which beats the grocery sector and the S&P by a wide margin. After retooling our strategy three years ago, Safeway's share price increased 20% in 2005 and 39% in the last twelve months."
