Tim Cook set to gain nearly $100M in vesting stock
updated 04:40 pm EST, Thu January 5, 2012
Will beat out Schmidt, other tech leaders
Apple CEO Tim Cook may be about to vastly increase his personal wealth, notes an executive compensation tracking firm, Equilar. Parts of two separate restricted stock unit grants belonging to Cook are vesting in the current quarter. Based on Apple's closing stock price on December 30th, the shares are estimated to be worth about $96.2 million.
Most of the value is linked to a grant of 200,000 shares from September 2008, part of a series of retention bonuses handed out to Apple executives at the time. That portion of Cook's stock will vest on March 24th. Vesting on March 10th is the second half of 75,000 shares awarded in March 2010, in recognition of Cook substituting for Steve Jobs while the latter was on medical leave during the first half of 2009. The payout was also accompanied by $5 million in cash.
Cook will reap more in vesting equity grants this quarter than any other Silicon Valley executive. Even Google chairman Eric Schmidt is only slated to pull in approximately $16.4 million; rounding out the top five are eBay CEO John Donahoe ($10.5 million), SuccessFactors CEO Lars Dalgaard ($5 million), and Autodesk CEO Carl Bass ($3.9 million).
