Google plans to start paying non-employee directors on its board in cash, just after tossing them a hefty restricted stock award.
In a filing with the SEC Friday, Google revealed that it will be breaking with tradition by deciding to pay directors not employed by the company $75,000 a year in cash and $350,000 a year in restricted stock grants. In addition, those non-employee board members (John Doerr, John Hennessey, Arthur Levinson, Paul Otellini, Ram Shriram, Ann Mather, and Shirley Tilghman) will also receive a one-time stock award worth $500,000, though Mather and Tilghman will have to wait awhile to participate in the new compensation plan because their previous stock awards have not fully vested.
"Our directors who are fully vested are functionally not being compensated. In order to continue providing them appropriate compensation, we've put in place a traditional compensation structure similar to that used by many of our peers," a Google representative said in a statement.
Google used to merely "reimburse our directors for reasonable expenses in connection with attendance at board of directors and committee meetings," according to its 2009 proxy statement, but like most companies has also awarded stock to directors who don't otherwise work for the company. However, with several longtime board members in place who are no longer seeing meteoric rises in Google's stock, it seems the company decided to sweeten the pot with guaranteed money.
Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, however, was used to working without compensation during his three-year stint on Apple's board of directors, which ended this week. Schmidt received all kinds of Apple gear and a "commemorative gift" while on the board, according to Business Week, but was not paid for his services at Apple in either cash or stock.
Wall Street executives feeling harassed by taxpayers outraged at their pay might take note of how Google's ruling triumvirate fared in 2008: $1 in salary each, no bonus, no stock grants, and no stock options.
Google has offered co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and Chief Executive Eric Schmidt "market-competitive" salaries every year since 2005, but once again in 2008, the three turned it down, according to a company regulatory filing Tuesday. "Due to their own preferences not to receive salary compensation, Eric, Larry, and Sergey each rejected these offers and continue to receive base salaries of $1," the company said.
Also in 2008, the company decided that the stock-based compensation it had awarded to top executives in 2007 was "sufficient to help us meet our retention and business objectives through 2008," so no new stock compensation was awarded to them except in the case of new Chief Financial Officer Patrick Pichette, who was set to receive compensation worth more than $2 million along with thousands of shares and stock options in his first year.
Schmidt received perks totaling $508,764 in 2008, up from $480,561 the year before. That covered $402,562 in personal security costs and $106,201 Google paid to fly his family members and friends on paid chartered flights.
Of course, Page, Brin, and Schmidt are certainly not paupers. The 29,148,614 shares of Google's Class B common stock Page held at the end of 2008 are worth $10.1 billion at Tuesday's closing price of $347.17; Brin's 28,611,862 shares are worth $9.9 billion, and Schmidt's 9,372,740 shares are worth $3.3 billion.
For Google's executive management team, the $6.3 million in bonuses they received for last year's performance can buy a lot of Android phones.
Google, in a filing Tuesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, noted its new chief financial officer, Patrick Pichette, received a $1.24 million bonus for his five months of work on the new job. For Pichette, he did not have to wait a full 12 months to become a Google millionaire.
Outgoing CFO George Reyes, meanwhile, received a bonus of $675,000. Over the past year, Google's stock has outperformed the Nasdaq.
Over the past year, Google's stock has outperformed the Nasdaq.
(Credit: Yahoo Finance)Google's Jonathan Rosenberg, senior vice president of product management, received the largest bonus, with $1.64 million coming his way.
Rosenberg was one Google executive who was active on its fourth-quarter earnings call, in which the company exceeded Wall Street's estimates despite facing the headwinds of a dire economy.
Alan Eustace, senior vice president of engineering and research and development, and Omid Kordestani, senior vice president of global sales and business development, meanwhile, each received a $1.38 million bonus.
As with , Google's co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, as well as its CEO Eric Schmidt, did not collect a bonus.
Updated at 5:20 p.m. PST, with comments from executive recruiter Jon Holman.
Yahoo is providing its new CEO, Carol Bartz, with a $1 million base salary, as part of a lucrative $19 million compensation package for the former Autodesk executive, according to a filing Thursday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Under the four-year employment contract, Bartz, 60, will also receive an annual equity grant valued at approximately $8 million in February, the filing stated. This grant will be doled out at the same time other Yahoo executives receive their annual equity grants.
And like most executives who leave behind unvested stock options to take a new job, Bartz will also be compensated for forfeiting her stock grants and post-employment medical coverage that she left behind at Autodesk. That compensation will come in the form of $10 million, with a quarter of it paid in cash and the remainder in Yahoo restricted stock that will vest through 2009.
In addition to her $19 million compensation package, Bartz will also be eligible for an annual bonus of up to $4 million above her base salary, if she hits certain targets, according to the filing.
"This compensation package is maybe a little on the rich side, but it's definitely not out of whack," said Jon Holman, who heads the executive recruiting firm The Holman Group.
Given that Yahoo is a turnaround situation and a multibillion-dollar company, Holman noted, Bartz's compensation package is relatively in line for a CEO of her caliber.
Bartz may also be eligible for 5 million Yahoo shares, if she can get the company's under-pressure stock price to rise a certain percentage within the next four years. Bartz will have a seven-year period to cash in those eligible shares.
But there is one aspect of the 5 million share payout that is unusual, Holman noted.
Under the employment agreement, Bartz can potentially walk away with no vested options after a four-year period, or a tidy sum of more than $100 million, if the exercise price were set today at $10 a share.
The compensation plan calls for Yahoo's stock to increase by a certain percentage at various intervals over the four-year period. But the unusual part of the plan is that the shares will not vest at all, if the stock does not reach those various levels.
Typically, stock options will vest, regardless of the trading price, on a scheduled basis. The vesting, however, may accelerate, or the number of shares eligible for vesting may increase, if an executive is able to achieve and maintain a company's stock price at a particular level.
But under Bartz's compensation plan, she could theoretically walk away with none of the 5 million shares vesting, Holman noted.
"This provision, while not unheard of, is not common," Holman said.
Glassdoor.com has picked up $6.5 million in second- round funding, the career information site said Monday.
Sutter Hill Ventures led the round, with follow-on investment from Benchmark Capital. With this latest round, Glassdoor.com has raised a total of $9.5 million in venture funding.
Glassdoor.com lets people anonymously share real-time information about specific jobs at various companies, the salaries for those positions, the work environment, benefits, and a CEO approval rating.
The site rolled out its beta in June and has grown to 110,000 contributions for 14,000 companies in various industries. The U.S. cities with its most active user bases include New York, San Francisco, and Chicago.
"In the face of these tough economic times, this additional financing allows us to continue to grow the Glassdoor community and advance our product and business around the globe," Robert Hohman, Glassdoor chief executive, said in a statement.
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