Taking stock: Joey Jacobs set for 20 percent raise

Also: Fidelity hikes LifePoint stake, but sheds BioMimetic

Email | Print By Geert De Lombaerde

Joey Jacobs, the CEO of Psychiatric Solutions, will earn a base salary of $1.5 million this year, up 20 percent from 2007. He also stands to earn a substantially bigger bonus, option and restricted stock payments than last year, cementing his place as one of Middle Tennessee’s highest-paid executives.

In its proxy statement filed this afternoon, Psych Solutions (Ticker: PSYS) details the compensation packages of Jacobs and his leadership team. Jacobs, who co-founded the Franklin-based company in 1997, pocketed cash, options and restricted shares worth $5.1 million last year, up almost 20 percent from 2006.

That number that included $1.2 million in salary and more than $1.5 million in non-equity bonus payouts, which are based primarily on the company’s EBITDA and earnings per share.

Shares of Psych Solutions fell 13 percent last year, ending a stellar run that took them from less than $5 in the spring of 2003 to $37 at the end of 2006. Year to date, they’re down another 3 percent.

For 2008, Jacobs can earn up to $2 million – 133 percent of his base salary – in bonuses. He also will have the chance to earn 125,000 options and 100,000 restricted shares this year. Both those numbers are up from 60,000 in 2007.

Fidelity likes LifePoint

Money management giant Fidelity Investments increased its holdings in LifePoint Hospitals by more than 2.5 million shares during the first quarter.

The Boston-based company now owns a shade over 7 million LifePoint shares, or 12.3 percent of the hospital company (Ticker: LPNT). At the end of 2007, those numbers were 4.4 million and 8.2 percent, respectively.

On the flip side, Fidelity slashed its stake in BioMimetic earlier this year, dumping more than half of the 2.7 million shares it owned. Its stake in the Franklin biotech (Ticker: BMTI) now stands at 6.8 percent.