Apple Top Execs to Get $60 Million Bonus Each For Sticking Around

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Steve Jobs may have left the building, and a handful of Apple executives are now running the show. The company has just made seven top Apple employees several million dollars richer — if they stick with Apple for the next five years, that is.

Customers often credit Apple’s latest and greatest products to the late ex-CEO Steve Jobs. But industrial design, supply chain management, software development and marketing do not solely rely on the CEO. Apple does have a handful of talent that have actually been running the show behind the scenes. The likes of Jony Ive, Phil Schiller, Eddy Cue and Scott Forstall are not so well-known to the general public but Apple fans know them to have worked closely with Jobs in bringing out Apple bestsellers.

Apple wants to prevent brain drain from the company — which is a big issue that other technology companies have of late, such as Google’s experience with a top Google+ developer defecting to Facebook. This is why Apple has awarded several of its management top brass a few million dollars’ worth of stocks earlier this week. As such a move will require a SEC filing, stock grants to the following executives have been reported:

• Scott Forstall, SVP for iOS – 150,000 shares;
• Bruce Sewell, SVP and General Counsel – 150,000 shares;
• Phillip Schiller, SVP for Worldwide Product Marketing – 150,000 shares;
• Peter Oppenheimer, SVP and CFO – 150,000 shares;
• Robert Mansfield, SVP for Hardware Engineering – 150,000 shares;
• Eddy Cue, SVP for Internet Software and Services – 100,000 shares.

At about $400 per share at current prices, 150,000 shares will be worth around $60 million dollars. The execs will not get their shares in one go, though. 50% will be issued by 2013, and another 50% by 2016, which means they’ll need to be with Apple in the next five years to be eligible for the bonus.

Strangely enough, Senior VP for industrial design Jony Ive — who was said to be very close with Steve Jobs — is not included in the SEC filing. But this doesn’t mean he did not get a hefty bonus. Apple’s design guru may or may have not been granted additional Apple shares of stock. But with his position being a non-executive one, Apple is not required to submit a SEC filing for any stock grants to Ive.

CEO Tim Cook reportedly got a bigger stock grant when he took on the CEO position — at 1 million shares — which will be issued if he sticks around for the next 10 years. That’s worth about $400 million at current prices.

Our executive team is incredibly talented and they are all dedicated to Apple’s continued success. These stock grants are meant to reward them down the road for their hard work in helping to keep Apple the most innovative company in the world.

Apple is banking heavily on the talent of its current team in bringing out profitable products in the wake of the company’s loss of co-founder Steve Jobs. With the bonus being stock grants, Apple’s top execs will need to make sure Apple continues to have stellar business performance in order for their bonus to keep or even increase in value.