WASHINGTON (Parliament Politics Magazine) – Investors are being pushed to vote against Apple CEO Tim Cook’s $99 million (£73 million) pay package from last year.
Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) expressed “serious concerns” about the award’s amount, which has increased from $14.8 million the previous year.
Mr Cook, whose net wealth is estimated to be in excess of £1 billion, was paid in shares, salary, and other expenses.
Apple has been contacted by the BBC for comment.
The ISS expressed “serious concerns” about the package’s “design and magnitude” in a letter to shareholders. “Half of the award lacks performance criteria,” according to ISS.
Mr Cook, 61 years old, has frequently expressed his concerns about issues of human rights and equality, and stated in the year 2015 that he would give away all his fortune before he died.
Mr Cook was paid 1,447 times more than any average Apple employee, says ISS.
Personal security costs of $630,600 and personal usage of a private jet of $712,500 were included in his deal. Last year, the cost of such benefits “far exceeded” that of comparable organisations, according to ISS.
Mr Cook contributed over £7.4 million worth of Apple shares to unnamed recipient the previous year, according to the filing from US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
In January, the corporation behind the MacBook, iPhone and iPad became the first to reach a stock market valuation of $3 trillion (£2.2 trillion), before dropping to its current value of $2.8 trillion (£2.1 trillion).
Since Mr Cook took control in 2011, shareholder returns have increased by more than 1,000 percent.
In the first week of March, Apple will conduct its annual shareholder meeting. Shareholder votes, on the other hand, are purely advisory, with Apple’s board of directors deciding on pay packages.
Apple’s executive compensation package was supported by 95 percent of shareholders at last year’s meeting.
Increasing dissent
Companies in the United States and the United Kingdom are encountering more shareholder pressure on salary and compensation.
In 2021, GE, IBM, and Starbucks all failed to gain a majority of shareholder support for executive pay. Previous year, climate activists led shareholder revolts at ExxonMobil and Chevron, two major US oil companies.
In early 2021, asset manager Blackrock, Exxon’s second largest shareholder, more than doubled its votes against CEO pay recommendations in the Americas, compared to early 2020.
In the United Kingdom, more than twice as many FTSE 100 businesses faced shareholder revolts in 2018 than in 2020, denouncing executive pay packages at a time when many employees were facing additional financial challenges as a result of the pandemic.
To help pay for a huge social spending programme, President Joe Biden and legislative Democrats have called for greater taxes on billionaires and big enterprises. By limiting executive salary deductions, the measure would raise nearly $16 billion.
The idea would raise taxes to pay for federally sponsored paid family leave, increased education budgets, and climate change issues.
