Google CEO Sundar Pichai will be richer by $380 million soon as an award of 353,939 restricted shares he received before a promotion in 2014 will vest on Wednesday.
At the end of last week, the grant was worth about $380 million, making it one of the largest single payouts to a public company executive in recent years, Bloomberg reported.
Sundar Pichai, 45, who has led Alphabet Inc.’s Google since 2015, received the shares before his promotion to senior vice president of products a year earlier, when he took over many of co-founder Larry Page’s responsibilities.
The award swelled in value as Alphabet’s stock surged 90 percent since the grant date, compared with a 39 percent advance of the S&P 500. He has received two more nine-figure stock grants since then.
Mountain View, California-based Google has yet to disclose Sundar Pichai’s compensation for 2017.
In 2016, CEOs of S&P 500 companies realized an average of $16.2 million from shares that vested or exercising stock options, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Other tech executives have received hefty payouts in the past. Facebook Inc.’s Mark Zuckerberg reaped $2.28 billion when he exercised 60 million options as part of the company’s initial public offering in August 2012. Months later, restricted shares worth $822 million held by his deputy Sheryl Sandberg fully vested.
In 2016, Tesla Inc.’s Elon Musk collected $1.34 billion after exercising 6.71 million options that were close to expiring, in part to cover a $593 million tax bill. That same year, Monster Beverage Corp.’s two top executives took in a combined $598 million thanks to the stock rising an average of 30 percent a year for a decade.
