Apple shareholders approve CEO Cook’s annual compensation, civil rights proposal

March 4, 2022

(Reuters) -Apple Inc shareholders approved Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook’s annual compensation in a virtual meeting on Friday, and voted in favor of a proposal urging Apple to oversee a third-party civil rights audit of the company’s policies and practices.

By approving Cook’s pay package, investors rejected some concerns, including from proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), over the magnitude and structure of his equity award. ISS had urged shareholders to vote against the pay package.

Cook, who took the helm in 2011, last year received a compensation package with a total value of $98.7 million, a sum 1,447 times that of the average employee, thanks to a stock grant as part of a long-term equity plan.

He earned $14.8 million a year earlier.

Cook received 333,987 restricted stock units in 2021 in his first stock grant since 2011 as part of the long-term equity plan. He will be eligible to receive additional units in 2023.

Apple said in its latest proxy filing that Cook’s stock award was aligned with the interest of the company’s shareholders.

Cook took the helm in August 2011 after company co-founder Steve Jobs stepped down months before his demise. The stock has risen over 1,100% since he took the top job.

SOC Investment Group Executive Director Dieter Waizenegger, a proponent of the civil rights proposal, said the vote in favor of the resolution should push Apple to combat inequality and address harm to marginalized groups.

“I think the patience of investors has run out,” Waizenegger said. “It’s time for Apple to take a serious step, including a third-party independent review of its measures.”

Shareholders voted against proposals calling on Apple to increase transparency in the company’s efforts to protect workers in its supply chain from forced labor and another on gender and racial pay gaps.

Apple had opposed these transparency proposals, while ISS had urged shareholders to support them.

(Reporting by Nivedita Balu in Bengaluru and Danielle Kaye in New YorkEditing by Maju Samuel and Matthew Lewis)