According to a series of U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings on Wednesday, Apple awarded top executive leadership nearly 36,000 restricted stock units each, which at current prices would net over $19 million.
In the identical filings, six Apple executives were awarded 35,780 RSUs each, the bulk of which are scheduled to vest in three intervals through 2018. As it has in the past, the company is likely issuing the restricted units as an incentive to keep production levels high.
Receiving the RSUs were Apple SVP of Operations Jeffrey E. Williams, general counsel and SVP of Legal and Government Affairs Bruce Sewell, SVP of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller, SVP of Hardware Engineering Dan Riccio, SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi and SVP of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue.
Each executive received a first batch of 22,738 RSUs that will vest in equal parts on the first day of April in 2016, 2017 and 2018.
The second and third award chunks are more performance-driven and will vest depending on Apple's relative total shareholder returns. A set of 6,626 RSUs is dependent on performance from Sept. 29, 2013 through Sept. 29, 2015, and between 0 to 200 percent of the reported "target" number may vest on Oct. 1, 2015. A batch of 6,416 units are to vest under the same conditions on Oct. 1, 2016 with performance shareholder return gauged from Sept. 29, 2013 to Sept. 26, 2016.