Caterpillar Inc. said Chief Executive Doug Oberhelman's pay package for 2015 rose 4.5% to $17.9 million, lifted by stock awards and a boost in the value of his stock options and some benefits.

Mr. Oberhelman's salary last year was flat at $1.6 million, according to a regulatory filing. He received stock awards of $3 million last year, and the value of his stock-option awards rose to $9 million from $8.4 million a year earlier.

Mr. Oberhelman has served as CEO since July 2010.

Executive pay at Caterpillar has come under scrutiny. Last year, proxy advisers Glass Lewis & Co. and Institutional Shareholder Services Inc., along with the union-affiliated CtW Investment Group, had urged shareholders to vote against Caterpillar's compensation policies.

In an unusually stinging rebuke, around a third of the votes cast by Caterpillar shareholders at the annual meeting in June rejected the heavy-equipment maker's executive-compensation policies.

The company defended its pay policies, saying that they tied compensation closely to performance and that executives deserved raises because they reduced costs and gained market share.

In 2015, the Peoria, Ill., company's profit dropped 43% to $2.1 billion in 2015 as revenue fell 15% to $47 billion.

On Friday, Caterpillar cut its financial outlook for 2016. The company is facing the fourth straight year of falling sales of its trademark yellow bulldozers, excavators, mining trucks and engines. It also is trimming thousands of jobs to cut costs.

Write to Tess Stynes at tess.stynes@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 25, 2016 09:45 ET (13:45 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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