Google CEO Pichai receives record $199 million stock grant

0
263

February 9, 2015

New York: Google Inc.’s Sundar Pichai is poised to become one of the highest-paid executives of a publicly traded company this year after parent Alphabet Inc. awarded him restricted stock worth about $199 million.

February 9, 2015

New York: Google Inc.’s Sundar Pichai is poised to become one of the highest-paid executives of a publicly traded company this year after parent Alphabet Inc. awarded him restricted stock worth about $199 million.

Sundar Pichai's award is the biggest ever given to a Google executive officer whose equity grants have to be reported in filings. Photo: AFP

Pichai, who is Google’s chief executive officer, received 273,328 Class C shares on 3 February that will vest in quarterly increments through 2019 if he remains on the job, according to a filing on Friday from the Mountain View, California-based company.

Pichai, the former deputy of Google co-founder Larry Page, was named to run the search engine unit following the reorganization into holding company Alphabet last year. The award is the biggest ever given to a Google executive officer whose equity grants have to be reported in filings, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It is Pichai’s first award since taking over the company’s highest-grossing unit.

Many believe that in order to earn a six-figure salary, an MBA or a high post in a multi-national company is necessary. However, according to a recent study conducted by Forbes, the following list of vocations all command higher salaries than one might imagine. All figures mentioned are U.S. salaries.

Alphabet also awarded $42.8 million in restricted stock to Diane Greene, a co-founder and former CEO of software maker VMware Inc., who’s led Google’s cloud business since November. Greene received equity worth $148 million last year after Google acquired tech company Bebop Technologies Inc., which she founded.

Chief financial officer Ruth Porat, who joined from Morgan Stanley last year, received equity worth $38.3 million that will vest under the same conditions as Pichai’s award, a filing shows.

An Alphabet spokesman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Google typically grants equity awards to executives once every two years, a strategy it has said “encourages executives to take a long-term view of the business.”


Courtesy: Bloomberg