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Businessweek just published a report that shows that Apple employs four out of five of the top paid executives in the S&P 500. Even more interesting is the fact that none of them are CEOs. They are senior lieutenants that received cushy compensation packages to entice them to stay with the company.
According to Businessweek, Bob Mansfield, Bruce Sewell, Jeffrey Williams, and Peter Oppenheimer, all Apple execs, were top earners in 2012. This information comes from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which collected financial data for about 80 percent of all S&P 500 companies this year.
Business analysts are saying that Apple is paying big money to keep its top dogs under their roof. ““It’s a retention strategy to keep the key executives who were present in the Steve Jobs era,” said Greg Sterling, an analyst at San Francisco-based Opus Research. “They want to be sure the actual talents that they bring to the company are retained, and also from a perception standpoint to retain confidence in the leadership.”
Although Apple spokesman Steve Dowling declined to comment on the company’s compensation process, the Board’s regulatory filing shows that members said stock grants should be “meaningful in size in order to retain the company’s executive team during the CEO transition.”
When former CEO Steve Jobs passed away, Apple feared that its best employees would jump ship. Mansfield was already planning on retiring in June. However, persuasion in the form of stock options and other financial compensation kept him on board as the transition from Jobs to Cook took place.
According to Businessweek, all four senior lieutenants earned more than Apple’s current CEO in 2012. Cook sits somewhere around the 1,000 spot for top earners. Don’t feel bad for the newb. His 2011 compensation package made him the highest paid CEO that year.
Apple’s compensation retention strategy seems to have worked. The only executive to leave the company after Cook took over was Ron Johnson, who may be headed back soon.
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