In exchange, Belluzzo forfeited options to buy 3.5 million shares of stock, according to the report filed Friday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The kind of loan granted Belluzzo became illegal July 30 under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, passed after outcry over excessive corporate compensation and scandal.

Microsoft gave two other executives similar compensation packages, one of which will be disclosed later in the month when the company files its proxy report with the SEC, spokeswoman Caroline Boren told The Seattle Times. The other will not be disclosed because it is not material to earnings, she said in the story published Saturday.

"It's important to note that this compensation package was developed at a time when the market for senior executives was hypercompetitive," she said.

"Microsoft also recognizes that the view of executive compensation has evolved since that time," she said.

Belluzzo, now chief executive at Quantum, a storage-drive maker in Milpitas, Calif., could not immediately be reached for comment. There is no number listed for Belluzzo in the area, and a phone message left with Quantum was not returned Saturday.

Belluzzo's loan was an advance on the profit he was expected to make from 3.5 million stock options he received when he came to Microsoft in 2000.

Under terms of his April resignation, he relinquished those options and also received a $350,000 bonus.

Those options he forfeited might someday have been worth far more than the amount forgiven, the Times reported.

He also must pay taxes on the $15 million.

Friday's SEC filing includes charts showing how profits would have differed if options were treated as an expense. In the fiscal year that ended June 30, Microsoft's profit would have been $2.5 billion lower, or $5.3 billion instead of $7.8 billion, if options were considered an expense.