Hewlett-Packard Co. gave its new CEO, who came aboard during a tumultuous time for the technology conglomerate, a compensation package that could be worth tens of millions of dollars.
Leo Apotheker, 57, is getting a $1.2 million salary, a $4 million cash signing bonus, and $4.6 million in relocation costs and reimbursement for non-compete payments from his former employer, German business software maker SAP AG, HP outlined in a regulatory filing Tuesday.
The majority of his payday will come from restricted stock that was worth nearly $38 million based on HP’s stock price the day it was granted in September. That was when Apotheker agreed to fill a void left atop the computing industry heavyweight after his predecessor Mark Hurd was ousted last summer in a sexual harassment scandal.
Apotheker won’t get his stock award all at once. And the value he ultimately sees may wind up being far less — or far more — depending on HP and its stock perform over the next three years. The majority of his stock is performance-based, which means he’ll only get all of it if HP hits certain financial targets.
Because Apotheker didn’t start at HP until November, which was after the company’s latest fiscal year ended, HP didn’t calculate a total value of his compensation package like it did for other executives who worked there earlier.
Hurd’s was paid a $1.1 million salary for the 2010 fiscal year, and received a $12.2 million severance payment. He was in line for almost $10 million in stock awards that were canceled as part of a settlement that allowed him to work at Oracle Corp., an HP rival.
HP’s board was criticized about the size of Hurd’s severance package. The company’s stock sank after Hurd’s resignation, wiping out $9 billion in shareholder wealth in the first day of trading after…