A firm that advises investors about upcoming shareholder votes this week recommended that those with a stake in Apple vote against a $99 million pay package for company CEO Tim Cook.
Institutional Shareholder Advisory Services, a top proxy advisory firm, told its clients in a letter that there is “significant concern” with a stock award Cook, age 61, received last year and urged them to vote against the package, The Financial Times reported Wednesday.
According to the outlet, Cook received stock awards valued at $82 million at the time of the grant, a $12 million bonus and a $3 million salary last year. Cook had not received a stock award since 2011, when he was named CEO of the tech company shortly before the death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.
That award from 10 years ago was a $750 million moonshot award, said the Los Angeles Times.
Included in Cook’s $98.7 million pay package for 2021 were $630,630 in personal security costs and $712,488 for personal use of a private jet. ISS said these perks “significantly exceeded” comparable companies. The firm also recommended against Apple’s pay in 2015.
“There are significant concerns regarding the design and magnitude of the equity award made to CEO Cook,” ISS said in the report, according to the Los Angeles Times. Half of Cook’s 2021 award was time-based, not based on satisfying performance criteria such as increases in Apple’s share price, said the outlet.
With Cook at the helm of Apple – which The Financial Times referred to as “the world’s most valuable company” – it became the first company to hit a $3 trillion market capitalization just last month. Shareholder returns, a measure of performance for company stocks over time, have increased close to 30 per cent over the past 12 months and profits for the fourth quarter of last year were up.
Overall, Cook’s leadership has been praised and he made history as the first openly gay CEO of a Fortune 500 company in 2014. He is known for operational expertise and “politically savvy” moves such as campaigns for social equity, said The Financial Times.
Apple has already granted Cook a pay package for 2022.
Shareholders are expected to vote on the pay package March 4 at the company’s annual meeting. Votes are advisory only and the company board is not required to act in response. At the 2021 meeting, 95 percent backed his compensation package.
A spokesperson for Cupertino-based Apple declined to comment on the ISS report according to multiple outlets.
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