The roller-coaster movement of share market values over the past 10 years were generally unpredictable for investors but such is not the case for most of Australia's chief executives, who according to a new report were largely shielded by solid pays and bonuses notwithstanding the overall economic condition.

In a report issued by the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors (ACSI) on Monday, it was showed that the top 100 companies listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) registered some 30 percent jump on stock values during the past decade.

The figures, ACSI said, were indeed favourable for the market but it turned out that Australian CEOs reaped more benefits as the report also established that they took home better compensations over the same period, with pay and bonus spikes of more than 100 percent.

The study pointed out that the best years for these executives were posted during 2006 through 2007 as compared to pays collected during the global financial crisis from 2008 to 2010, by which time the average salary dipped to as low as $1.92 million.

The numbers saw improvement late last year when CEOs started gaining more cash and their declared salaries peaked to an average of $4.9 million while also around that time, the ACSI report revealed, that regular employees experienced average salary hikes higher than the heads of their respective firms.

The trend, however, was still dwarfed by the overall pay and bonus gains by CEOs from 2000 through 2010 when they saw their compensations soaring by as much as 133 percent while ACSI said regular wages surged only by 53 percent.

Around that time too, Australia's inflation levels shot up by 28.6 percent, the report said.

In a glimpse, ACSI chief Anne Byrne said that CEOs of big companies were mostly pampered and protected by their hefty paychecks, which she noted were privileges not available to shareholders, who were at the mercy of natural and unpredictable market forces.

"The past 10 years have been far better for CEOs of top 100 companies than investors, given the annual cash take of a CEO from a large company has almost doubled over the decade," Byrne was quoted by BusinessDay in the report as saying.

Notable pay gainers over the same period were company bosses from the banking, construction and mining industries, the report said, which identified former Leighton chief Wal King, former Fortescue Metals Group boss Andrew Forrest and Commonwealth Bank of Australia head Ralph Norris as recipients of huge compensations.