HP CEO Whitman Earned One Dollar Plus $16 Million in 2011

Hewlett-Packard released its annual proxy statement this morning, which, among other things, gives a look at what its top five executives made last year. Here’s the rundown:

CEO Meg Whitman, who upon becoming CEO agreed to take an annual base salary of $1, received more than $16 million worth of stock awards. Add on another $372,598 in other compensation, and the total value of her package was north of $16.5 million. Much of that other compensation stemmed from the period when Whitman was a director on HP’s board, and before she was CEO.

Under her employment contract, Whitman received an option to purchase 1.9 million shares of HP stock at a strike price equal to the value of the share price on the date of the grant, and subject to vesting requirements over time. As of today, 1.9 million shares would be worth almost $55 million. Whitman, the filing says, was the only one among the company’s named executive officers to receive an options award during 2011.

The filing also shows that CFO Cathie Lesjak made a base salary of $825,000, plus $9.3 million in stock-based compensation, $679,000 in incentive pay and $101,500 in other compensation, for a total of more than $11 million.

Todd Bradley, executive vice president and head of the Personal Systems Group, the division that HP briefly considered spinning out last year, made a base salary of $850,000, plus $9.3 million in stock-based compensation. He received $464,457 in incentive pay, plus $105,000 in other compensation, for a total just shy of $10.7 million.

Vyomesh “VJ” Joshi, the executive president and head of the Imaging and Printing Group, got an $850,000 salary, too, and nearly $8 million in stock awards, plus $638,355 in incentive pay, for a total of $9.8 million.

Shane Robison, the former chief strategy officer who retired last year, received a base salary of $781,250, plus stock awards worth $7.6 million and $606,506 in incentive pay, for a total of $9 million.

Finally, we have a full accounting of what former CEO Léo Apotheker made for his 11 months of service at HP’s helm. The full amount was $30.4 million. The precise amount had been the subject of some guesswork based on less-than-complete HP filings made around the time of Apotheker’s departure. The filings netted for HP a dubious award for “Worst Footnote of the Year” over at Morningstar’s Footnoted blog. My best guess had been in the $28 million to $33 million range.

Apotheker’s compensation breaks down like so:

• $1,152,770 in base salary.

• A $6.4 million bonus, of which $4 million was a signing bonus when he joined HP, and $2.4 million paid under the terms of his separation agreement.
• Stock awards worth $17,660,759.
• $5.2 million in “other compensation.” Within that was $2.9 million in relocation expenses related to Apotheker’s move from France to California and back; $1.7 million in “miscellaneous,” the majority of which, as explained in a footnote, was a “reimbursement for foregone non-competition payments that would have otherwise been payable by his former employer,” which refers to the software company SAP, where Apotheker was co-CEO.
• Another $25,000 representing his personal use of HP aircraft.