Google CEO Sundar Pichai Said to Rake in $380 Million This Week

Google Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai is about to have a very big week.

On Wednesday, an award of 353,939 restricted shares he received before a promotion in 2014 will vest. At the end of last week, the grant was worth about $380 million (roughly Rs. 2,500 crores), making it one of the largest single payouts to a public company executive in recent years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Pichai, 45, who has led Alphabet's Google since 2015, received the shares before his promotion to senior vice president of products a year earlier, when he took over many of co-founder Larry Page's responsibilities. The award swelled in value as Alphabet's stock surged 90 percent since the grant date, compared with a 39 percent advance of the S&P 500. He has received two more nine-figure stock grants since then. The company has yet to disclose Pichai's compensation for 2017.

Winnie King, a spokeswoman for the Mountain View, California-based company, declined to comment.

In 2016, CEOs of S&P 500 companies realised an average of $16.2 million (roughly Rs. 107 crores) from shares that vested or exercising stock options, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Other tech executives have received hefty payouts in the past. Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg reaped $2.28 billion (roughly Rs. 15,000 crores) when he exercised 60 million options as part of the company's initial public offering in August 2012. Months later, restricted shares worth $822 (roughly Rs. 54,600) million held by his deputy Sheryl Sandberg fully vested.

In 2016, Tesla's Elon Musk collected $1.34 billion (8,900 crores) after exercising 6.71 million options that were close to expiring, in part to cover a $593 million (roughly Rs. 3,940 crores) tax bill. That same year, Monster Beverage Corp.'s two top executives took in a combined $598 million (roughly Rs. 3,980 crores) thanks to the stock rising an average of 30 percent a year for a decade.

Alphabet, which is set to report first-quarter results after US markets close Monday, slid 0.3 percent to $1,073.64 (roughly Rs. 71,300) at 10:05am in New York, paring this year's advance to 2.1 percent.

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