“Apple Inc. Friday awarded a host of senior executives lucrative stock-option grants, as the company seeks to retain its senior bench after the death of co-founder Steve Jobs,” Jessica E. Vascellaro reports for The Wall Street Journal.
“On Friday, the company filed regulatory forms with the Security and Exchange Commission saying it had granted the senior executives 150,000 restricted stock units each. Half of each grant vests in 2013 and half in 2016, assuming the executives remain at the company,” Vascellaro reports. “At Friday’s closing price for Apple shares, each package was worth about $60 million.”
Vascellaro reports, “The executives awarded those grants included chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer, general counsel Bruce Sewell and senior vice presidents Scott Forstall, Phil Schiller, Bob Mansfied, Jeffrey Williams… [and] Eddy Cue.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Thomas65807” for the heads up.]
Well worth it.
how do you calculate that this is “worth it”? The stock awards that Apple just blew on a few people could have funded half a dozen new retail stores!!! do you these guys wouldn’t stick around for 25% as much stock rewards? It is a waste of money from the Apple investor’s point of view.
It’s one thing to be the primary agent for starting the company, or to the be primary VCs providing funding to get a company off the ground. That’s substantial risk which deserves commeasurate reward. But for a hired management team of an established corporation, these individuals have ZERO personal risk. Their reward is entirely out of whack with their contributions to the enterprise. Want proof? Look at the compensation taken by equally competent managers in other companies all over the planet.
The board / management acting so selfishly tarnishes Apple’s reputation. Didn’t they profess to “think different”? This is even more obscene compensation than most companies. No individual can possibly be worth as much as US executives are given … or rather, give each other while investors stand by powerlessly.
The practice of overpaying a few executives obscene rewards, though being legal, is disgusting and is the primary source of instability of a capitalist economy. The few holding all the riches don’t have the time or energy or attention to spend it back into the economy where it does the most good. So we have the agency problem where, typically, these rich executives hand over large chunks of their wealth to professional gamblers on wall st. We see how that turns out – a boom and a bust every 10 years.
If it’s better to have low taxes so that people can use their money to reinvest in the economy, then it is also better for executives be forced to have reasonable pay scales so that money can be better spent to reinvest in the company.
I have great admiration for the management team at Apple, and I agree that they deserve to be well-rewarded. But $60M apiece is not chump change, and it would be hypocritical of me to simply wave my hands and agree when I am on record as despising the incredible bonuses that corporate executives are awarding each other (via compensation boards) at the expense of the actual owners of the corporation – the shareholders. Many other people at Apple also worked hard and made significant contributions to Apple’s successes. You could award 600 kick ass employees $100K each for the same total of $60M given to one Apple executive.
I am not against wealthy people. I would like to be one myself, and I am slowly working my way up. But I am disturbed at the increasing disparity in the distribution of wealth in the U.S. When most of the resources are concentrated in the hands of a relative few, then who is left to buy things and keep the economy of this country vibrant? The unrest that currently exists will not just disappear. People can only be pushed so far, and the politicians and greedy corporate moguls are rapidly running out of people (other than themselves) to blame.
Compared to the vesting dates on options given to Tim Cook recently (2016 and 2021), the options vest much more quickly. I’m curious as to why.
Thats when they run out of Steve Jobs’ ideas.
is this really neccessary…seems more like a ridiculous bribe so executives don’t run away to another company
what about us small guys who use our spare change to buy shares we don’t get anything for free like these guys do
That’s why you’re a small guy. These guys aren’t. Maybe if you did what they did in life and worked your ass off you might be getting the same kind of deal. That’s the beauty of the free market.
Not a liberal is being an idiot so just ignore him
However Apple do have to retain their key executives and many maybe recruit away from the company by lucrative deals. So the options are a good way to keep them at the company.
Remember they know a lot about new product lines and also how and why apple are do successful.
Other bonuses should be performance based and only applied when earned. A lot of companies give out bonus even if the organization is doing
badly. That tends to make them far and lazy.
Given that Apple is succeeding beyond any other competitor then I’m not going to complain about the execs getting large options and bonuses.
“Other bonuses should be performance based and only applied when earned. ”
I disagree. Executives should be highly rewarded no matter how well or badly the company is doing. Any executive has gotten to their current position due to their awesome talent. And, executives get more talented as time passes so they need large bonuses on a regular basis to reflect those increases in talent. Executives need bonuses even when the company is losing money because next quarter the company might do better. If the company does better – the executives get rewarded. If not the executives should be rewarded anyways because the company might do better next quarter.
To limit executive income based on a company’s financial performance is simply un-American.
Hahahahahaha. Do you feel a stinging in your mouth and throat JC? That’s the hook, line and sinker scarring you for life on its way down. As if all executives become executives due to hard work and never due to nepotism, gender bias, attractiveness, ethnicity, religious background, sexual favors, blackmail or other criminal behavior. Your post is so egregiously misguided that part of me wonders if you were trying to be ironic. If so, well played.
So, what percentage would you guess become highly compensated executives due to the things you mention rather than just plain old hard (or very smart) work and delivering more value than their peers?
In my experience, maybe 30-50%. In times of economic crisis, nepotistic hiring practices increase, so we’ve probably been on the high end of that scale over the past five years or so.
I’m glad you think hard work and good “life choices” is all it takes to be successful in this country, but it just isn’t reality unless you fulfill several arbitrary requirements at birth. Everyone else has a few to many more obstacles to overcome. Don’t disrespect said people by assuming you understand their circumstances.
Due to the current job market, the other 99% of Apple employees don’t need any incentive to stay at Apple. Besides, a typical pay raise for the majority of Apple’s employees would do little to offset the recent energy and food price increases. Helping out the small guy would just be a waste of Apple’s money.
Yeah, it would just be a waste of money giving the workers a little extra money to buy groceries with. It’s a far better use to give a single guy that’s already filthy rich $60 mill more than to feed the rank and file.
I should get the $60,000,000 because it will make a difference in my life. I can buy a bigger yacht, another sports car, and another house and invest in my future. Spreading that $60,000.000 over Apple’s 60,000 employees would be $1000 each. $1000 doesn’t buy much & won’t change their lives at all.
You better start worrying about your future burning in hell, you pretentious piece of crap.
Sounds like those other guys need to go back to school and get out of retail (or keep working retail while finishing school and stop complaining ). Or maybe work a little harder and provide more value.
The new wave of entitled whiners that complain about what others have worked hard for (while really wanting the same things without having to work for it) are getting really annoying.
Shut the hell up and go do or start something.
Does anyone REALLY believe these guys who are earning these compensation packages (ESPECIALLY at a company like Apple) are just lucky slackers who fell into these positions?
“the other 99% of Apple employees don’t need any incentive to stay at Apple.”
Sure we do, and we get it. I first joined Apple in 2002, and the stock options I got then are worth about $2M today. One senior engineer I know is retiring this month with shares worth around $11M (he joined quite a few years before I did.)
The RSUs granted to the engineers don’t make the news, but they’re quite satisfactory. For non-engineering staff, anyone in the company can participate in the employee stock purchase plan, and the shares you buy in the plan each quarter are priced 15% below the market price of either the first or last day in period, whichever is lower.
I will also add, that there’s a gold rush going on right now for Objective-C developers. I get cold calls from headhunters every week, and most of them are VC-funded startups looking to publish iOS apps. Apple’s engineering managers have to compete for their recruits, often against other groups within Apple, and they can’t get away with lowballing anyone.
Pretty sure apple employees aren’t allowed to comment on blogs
Sure we are. You might notice that I’m not talking about any unreleased products.
What about Jony Ive?
By SEC regulations only certain classes of officers of public corporations are required to disclose such grants. Ive is crucial to Apple and likely he also was given his full due, but there was no need to disclose it publicly. So to other employees. The disclosures almost certainly were only a part of the total grants.
So, they waited for Steve to die so they wouldn’t have to include his family? I hope they at least the 80¢ salary check from Apple.
Wow, it felt good being one of “those” posters for once.
Stock incentives are great.
On the other hand, I’d hate to see Apple having put pull tricks, not unlike Microsoft, in order to retain talent. Ideally Apple is one of the few remaining corporations attracting creative talent specifically because it is one of the few remaining corporations that is creative.
Stay on course please Apple!