Apple’s Tim Cook forgoes $75 million in quarterly stock dividends
Apple Inc. announced that Chief Executive Tim Cook would be passing up on $75 million by not participating in the Cupertino, Calif., company’s quarterly dividends.
With the company set to start giving out a quarterly dividend of $2.65 a share by the fourth quarter of this year, Cook decided not to collect the dividends for his 1.125 million shares, which would amount to $75 million before they each vested.
Cook’s decision to decline the payments was announced Thursday by the company through an SEC filing.
As All Things D notes, this is a classy move by Cook and Apple that should get the company some brownie points with the public and its investors.
[Updated, 9:02 a.m. May 25: Cook’s gesture comes as a new study out Friday shows that the head of a typical public company made $9.6 million in 2011.
The study -- an analysis by the Associated Press using data from Equilar, an executive pay research firm -- found that pay for the heads of public companies was up more than 6% from 2010, marking an increase for the second consecutive year. The figure is also the highest since the AP began tracking executive compensation in 2006.]
For the Record, 12:33 p.m. May 25: An earlier version of this post incorrectly said Cook was passing up $75 million in quarterly stock dividends, amounting to $300 million a year. In fact, $75 million is the amount his unvested shares would collect from dividends before they vest at various periods over the next decade. Cook has 1.125 million restricted stock units, at least 500,000 of which vest in 2016, and another 500,000 of which vest in 2021.
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