The 10 highest paid CEOs are amply rewarded -- earning an average of $58 million in the last year -- but they are not producing equally: three bargain CEOs created shareholder value on the cheap, three hogs added shareholder value but got paid too much to do so and four value destroyers were paid big bucks to lose shareholder value. Finding those bargain CEOs could be a great way to look for investment opportunities if you think that they can keep creating shareholder value at the same rate as they have in the past. (A map of the location of these CEOs is here.)

I calculate that in the last year, these 10 CEOs presided over the creation of $12 billion in stock market value -- their $58 million average CEO pay works out to 0.5% of that $12 billion in additional stock market value. But lest you get too excited, the average stock price of the 10 companies increased 12% while the S&P 500 rose 15%.

If CEOs were paid for value creation, I would expect all 10 of these companies to be contributing to that $12 billion in increased stock market value. But the reality is quite different -- four of the 10 destroyed shareholder value in the last year while the remaining six increased it. Who are the bargain CEOs, hogs, and value destroyers?