14 DAY TRIAL // Apple's CEO Steve Jobs is well known for his $1 salary, but despite not being paid much in terms of wages, he is well compensated by the company. By exercising options to buy shares, Jobs stands to reap a profit of $13.7 million.
This week, Steve Jobs bought 120,000 shares for $5.75 apiece. Apple gave Jobs the options under a plan for directors, back in 1997, according to an April filing. But the CEO has not sold the shares, nor does he plan to. Jobs co-founded Apple in 1976 using the money from the sale of his Volkswagen bus. In 1985 he was ousted by John Sculley, the Pepsi-Cola Co. CEO he had recruited.
After taking the CEO position in 1997, he became ineligible for further directors' grants. However, Apple did award him options for 55 million shares, adjusted for a subsequent split. The company canceled those in March 2003 after a three-year slide in the share price made them worthless. Instead, the board gave him 10 million shares of restricted stock, which vested in March 2006. With Jobs back at the helm, Apple's revenue has tripled over the past five years to $19.3 billion in 2006. Jobs turned Apple around through products such as the iMac and the iPod and kept moving the company forward with new products such as the iPhone.
Apple's shares have been falling over the past weeks and Jobs' 5.55 million Apple shares are worth approximately $665 million. His options on the 120,000 shares would have expired August 14. The options were "granted to Steve when he joined Apple's board of directors 10 years ago in 1997. They were set to expire this month, so Steve exercised them and plans to hold them," Apple spokeswoman Katie Cotton said. "Steve has never sold a share of Apple stock since rejoining the company 10 years ago."