How does Apple chief Tim Cook's package look now? Like $89m

Apple chief exec Tim Cook has been handed $89m (£69m) in shares after exceeding his performance target.

The windfall was due to the sale of 560,000 shares, half of which were linked to the company's performance, according to a regulatory filing.

The handout is part of his long-term stock options of one million shares if he stays at the helm until 2021.

Because Apple outperformed the middle third of the companies in the S&P 500 (the market capitalisations of 500 large companies with common stock listed on the NYSE or NASDAQ), Cook received the full payout, the filing said.

However, earlier this year Apple reported that Cook was hit with a 15 per cent pay cut in 2016. His "modest" $8.7m take-home was fortified by a package of vesting stock options that netted him a cool $135m payout earlier in the year.

Unlike many other Silicon Valley chief execs, Cook is not a billionaire.

In 2015, Cook told Fortune that he planned to donate his estimated $785m fortune to charity – after paying for his 10-year-old nephew's college education.

Meanwhile, Apple and the Irish government are gearing up to fight a European Union ruling that said €13bn (£11bn) was owed in back taxes in Ireland.

Cook had previously dismissed the case as "political crap" in an interview with the Irish Independent. ®