No one worth $100 mln-ex-Tyco CEO Kozlowski

LOS ANGELES, Nov 13 (Reuters) - The former head of Tyco International Ltd (TYC.N) said in a prison interview on Tuesday the company's board had not anticipated his stock-heavy compensation would grow to over $100 million, and that he doesn't "believe that anybody is worth that."

The interview with Dennis Kozlowski, which aired Tuesday evening on Fox Business Network's "Cavuto" program, took place earlier in the day at the Mid-State Correctional Facility in Marcy, New York.

Kozlowski is serving an eight- to 25-year federal prison sentence after a jury found him guilty of grand larceny, fraud and conspiracy in 2005. He also was ordered to pay restitution and fines of nearly $200 million.

Kozlowski, Tyco's former chairman and chief executive, said he is not guilty and is appealing the verdict.

"I don't think anybody set out to pay me the amount of money they paid me, in excess of $100 million a year," Kozlowski told Fox's Neil Cavuto. "I do not believe that anybody is worth that in business."

But because Kozlowski accepted the risk of being paid "mostly in stock," he also stood to benefit enormously when the company's share price began to skyrocket and the stock split.

"And that's the way the board wanted it," he said. "There was a deal in place. The deal was there, and I earned every single penny of that deal."

Kozlowski said federal legislation to cap tax deductions for CEO pay to $1 million in the early 1990s set in motion the trend of offering CEOs performance-based stock options packages.

He said boards also were to blame for large severance packages paid to CEOs of underperforming companies.

"I think boards have a hard time looking a CEO in the eye sometimes and saying, 'You're out of here.' They've worked with this guy for a long time. And so, in order to make themselves feel better, they throw a lot of money at them," he said. (Reporting by Gina Keating, editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)