Apple filed a preliminary proxy statement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, revealing how well a handful of current executives did for themselves in 2013. And while CEO Tim Cook saw his overall compensation increase by two percent compared to the 2012 fiscal year (up to $4.25 million total), the company reduced his amount of vested stock grants by nearly $4 million.
According to Computerworld, Cook's loss is due to Apple's poor performance when compared to the S&P 500's over the last year. When Cook took over as CEO in 2011, the board of executives gave him one million shares that would vest equally between August 2016 and August 2021. Cook urged the board to revise this setup in 2013, asking for the money to be spread out across 10 years and tied to company stock performance. The board converted about 80 percent of his one million shares to this performance deal, adding that half of each year's vesting pool could be eliminated or reduced if Apple finishes outside the top third of the S&P performance based on total shareholder return (a combination of share appreciation and dividends paid to holders). The company finished in the lower third for this most recent 12-month period, so Cook lost 7,123 shares valued at $3.6 million in late August. (Computerworld noted those 7,123 shares would be worth closer to $4 million this week and that Cook's remaining stock of 72,877 shares would've been valued at $36.5 million in August and over $40 million now.)
For further "don't weep for the rich" ammunition, Cook and the other executives each received the maximum 2013 bonus—twice their annual salary. Apple also increased the base salary of the executive officers besides Cook from $800,000 to $875,000. Those executives include CFO Peter Oppenheimer, Chief of Operations Jeffrey Williams, Daniel Riccio (hardware engineering lead), and Eddie Cue (head of online efforts).
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