Google CEO Sundar Pichai is about to have a very big week. On Wednesday, an award of 353 939 restricted shares he received before a promotion in 2014 will vest.
At the end of last week, the grant was worth about US$380m (about R4.7bn), making it one of the largest single payouts to a public company executive in recent years.
Pichai, 45, who has led Google since 2015, received the shares before his promotion to senior vice president of products a year earlier, when he took over many of co-founder Larry Page’s responsibilities.
The award swelled in value as parent Alphabet’s stock surged 90% since the grant date, compared to a 39% advance of the S&P 500. He has received two more nine-figure stock grants since then. The company has yet to disclose Pichai’s compensation for 2017.
Winnie King, a spokeswoman for the Mountain View, California-based company, declined to comment.
In 2016, CEOs of S&P 500 companies realised an average of $16.2m from shares that vested or exercising stock options, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Other tech executives have received hefty payouts in the past. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg reaped $2.3bn when he exercised 60m options as part of the company’s initial public offering in August 2012. Months later, restricted shares worth $822m held by his deputy Sheryl Sandberg fully vested.
In 2016, Tesla’s Elon Musk collected $1.3bn after exercising 6.7m options that were close to expiring, in part to cover a $593m tax bill. That same year, Monster Beverage’s two top executives took in a combined $598m thanks to the stock rising an average of 30%/year for a decade. — Reported by Anders Melin, with assistance from Alicia Ritcey, Mark Bergen and Steven Crabill, (c) 2018 Bloomberg LP
