executive compensation
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Apple CEO Tim Cook made $9.2M in 2014; board member Drexler retiring
It's not a big surprise, but Apple CEO Tim Cook isn't exactly a poor man. In the company's filed SEC Schedule 14A, it was disclosed that Cook pulled in a cool US$9,222,638 in compensation last year. Of that amount, $1,748,462 was his salary, non-equity incentive compensation was $6,700,000, and another $774,176 in "other compensation" added to the total. That total was over double the $4.3 million Cook made in 2013, but considering Apple had a record year, he definitely earned it. There were some big paydays for other Apple execs as well. New hire Angela Ahrendts, the senior vice president of retail and online stores, pulled in over $70 million in stock awards. $37 million of those awards were to compensate Ahrendts for unvested awards of stock at her previous employer - Burberry - and a nice lump sum of $33 million as a new hire at Apple. I'd venture that every Apple new hire would love a stock award of $33 million... or even just a $33,000 bonus. Senior VP of internet software and services Eddy Cue also nabbed a large stock award of over $20 million, as did operations senior VP Jeff Williams. In other news, longtime Apple board member and former president and CEO of The Gap, Inc. Millard "Mickey" Drexler will be stepping down from his role on the board in March of 2015. Drexler is 70 years old, the oldest Apple director, and has served on the board since 1999. Apple has not yet nominated a replacement for Drexler. Remember that Apple's Q1 2015 earnings call is coming up on Monday, January 27 at 5 PM ET. We will be bringing you news of the company's fortunes for the first fiscal quarter of 2015, as well as providing a liveblog of the earnings call.
The TUAW Daily Update Podcast for March 6, 2014
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get some the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the player at the top of the page. The Daily Update has been moved to a new podcast host in the past few days. Current listeners should delete the old podcast subscription and subscribe to the new feed in the iTunes Store here.
Numerous Apple executives sell millions of dollars' worth of shares
Last Friday we reported on a new SEC filing from Apple which relayed that Apple's Board of Directors tweaked Tim Cook's compensation package by adding a performance metric to his stock options. In addition, there were a number of other SEC filings from Apple which disclosed that a number of top executives sold millions of dollars' worth of Apple shares that had recently vested. Here's the breakdown: Apple CEO Tim Cook sold 41,391 shares for $17,115,178.50 Jeffrey Williams sold 38,181 shares for $15,787,843.50 Bob Mansfield sold 14,465 shares for $5,981,277.50 CFO Peter Oppenheimer sold 37,828 shares for $15,641,878 Phil Schiller sold 37,878 shares for $16,287,540 Bruce Sewell sold 37,828 shares for $15,641,878 Apple investors, however, shouldn't be worried that Apple's executive team is losing faith in the company. Keep in mind that the shares above were originally part of an allotment granted back in November 2011 with two vesting dates. The first one was on June 21, 2013 and the second is set for March 21, 2016. In other words, it's business as usual.
Apple's execs are not the best-paid
A report earlier this week from Businessweek claimed Apple has four of the five highest-paid employees among Standard & Poor's 500 companies. The figures cited in this report included both base salary and vested stock packages, which has some people, like Philip Elmer-DeWitt of Apple 2.0, crying foul. DeWitt open his acrid retort to the Businessweek article by asking whether "Bloomberg's brainiacs know the difference between an RSU and a pay check?" DeWitt points out that the compensation packages for Apple's top brass may have increased, but their pay has remained steady. These compensation packages include restricted stock units (RSU) that are not immediately available for the Apple executives and should not be counted as part of their pay. These RSUs are part of a retention package that becomes available after an employee works a set number of years. If the employee leaves before the RSUs have vested, then he or she loses that money. It's a common method used by companies to entice their employees to stay put for a while.
Midway execs get rich while company crashes
While Midway collapses, the fabulous salaries of the executives who brought the company to its knees are coming under scrutiny. TGR has a great post up about the ridiculous compensation the higher-ups at Midway were receiving over the last couple of years -- right as hundreds of employees are set to lose their jobs.Let's see here -- former CEO David F. Zucker made $4.5 million over the past two years. Current VP Martin Spiess made a little over a half million in 2007, which is about the same amount current CEO Matt Booty also made. TGR puts it in perspective: if the average industry salary is about $50k, Zucker's take over the last two years "could have paid for all 180 of those workers [who lost their jobs] to be employed at full pay for another six months." That logic and math might be a little fuzzy, but it's always disheartening to see the ineffective executives make out like bandits.
