Hewlett Packard will pay ousted CEO Leo Apotheker nearly US$10 million in severance and bonuses and let him keep 156,000 restricted shares, a hefty payout for an 11-month term that saw HP's share price dive 45 percent.
In contrast, HP will pay new CEO Meg Whitman a base salary of just US$1 per year. She, however, has the option to buy 1.9 million of the company's shares and is eligible for a performance bonus of US$2.4 million in 2012, the company said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Apotheker -- fired this month after repeatedly slashing sales forecasts and angering investors with a pricey acquisition of Autonomy -- gets a US$7.2 million severance payout and also a US$2.4 million annual bonus under the company's 2005 "pay-for-results plan".
In addition, he will be reimbursed for relocating to France or Belgium, and compensated for any losses on the sale of his residence in California.
Whitman joins a club of high-profile CEOs who have drawn the dollar-a-year salary, which include Apple's Steve Jobs, Yahoo founder Jerry Yang and Google executives Larry Page, Eric Schmidt and Sergey Brin.
(Reporting by Abhiram Nandakumar in Bangalore, editing by Bernard Orr).
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