Four of the Top Five Highest Paid S&P Executives are Apple SVPs

Four of the top five highest paid executives at Standard & Poor’s 500 companies aren't CEOs but rather Apple SVPs, reports BusinessWeek.

The four executives are Bob Mansfield, Bruce Sewell, Jeffrey Williams and Peter Oppenheimer, according to fiscal 2012 compensation figures for top earners filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. About 80 percent of S&P 500 companies had submitted their numbers as of April 12.


Apple SVP Technologies Bob Mansfield received $85.5 million, almost entirely in stock, ranking number two on the list. Bruce Sewell, Apple’s lead lawyer, received a package worth $69 million coming in at number three. Apple SVP Operations Jeffrey Williams came in fourth at $68.7 million and Peter Oppenheimer, SVP and CFO, came in fifth at $68.6 million.

“It’s a retention strategy to keep the key executives who were present in the Steve Jobs era,” said Greg Sterling, an analyst at Opus Research. “They want to be sure the actual talents that they bring to the company are retained, and also from a perception standpoint to retain confidence in the leadership.”