Google CEO Sundar Pichai receives huge payday
Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, has been awarded a hefty $199 million worth of shares, making him the highest paid CEO in the whole of the US.
Pichai, who only became a Google executive in 2014 and has only been CEO of the company since October, has been awarded a total of 273,328 Alphabet shares, which, at the time of the company filing, are worth roughly $199 million.
With this share grant, Pichai’s total Alphabet shares amount to the equivalent of nearly $650 million, a huge amount for somebody who has only been CEO since October. The fortune, though vast, is still quite a bit lower than those of Google’s founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who are worth $34.6bn and $33.9bn respectively, according to Forbes. It is also a lot less than former CEO Eric Schmidt, who holds shares worth around $3bn.
Perhaps the most controversial part of the award though, is that it actually equates to more than the $187 million Google agreed to pay the UK government for its back taxes since 2005. Google generated over $34.5bn in the UK between 2005 and 2014 on which it reported profit margins of between 25% and 30%, equating to nearly $10.4bn in profit over the period. Considering the company has agreed to pay a further $101 million on top of the $187 million settlement, Google’s tax rate in the UK is between 2% and 3%, significantly lower than the 20% headline corporation tax rate.
Pichai wasn’t the only one who had reason to celebrate. In fact, both Alphabet’s chief financial officer, Ruth Porat, and head of Google’s cloud computing business, Diane Greene, received very respectable share grants – the former received $38 million worth of shares, on top of the $30 million signing bonus she was given last year, while the latter was awarded $42.8 million in shares, on top of the $148 million she was awarded when Google bought the company she founded, Bebop Technologies.
Both Pichai and Porat’s stocks will vest in quarterly increments between now and 2019 if the remain on the job, giving them a solid reason to stay at the company. What do you think of the share grants? Let us know in the comments below!
Source: | SEC |
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Via: | Bloomberg |
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Photo Credits: | PC Tablet |
