Struggling BlackBerry is sparing no expense for new CEO John Chen, bestowing upon him a compensation package currently worth $88 million.
Chen, who joined the company last week, will receive a salary of $1 million plus a performance bonus of $2 million. The bulk of Chen's compensation will come in the form of 13 million BlackBerry shares. At Monday's price of $6.50 a share, that's worth $84.5 million. Chen will receive 25% of that on his third anniversary at the company and get another 25% on his fourth. At five years, Chen will get the remaining 50%.
See also: BlackBerry to Customers: We're Not Going Anywhere
BlackBerry announced last week that Chen was joining the company as CEO, replacing the outgoing Thorsten Heins. Chen had previously served as CEO of Sybase, which was purchased by SAP in 2010. Chen's favorable compensation packages comes after Heins received an exit package of $22 million. The potentially huge stock payout is also incentive for Chen to improve the company's prospects and the vesting mechanism gives him incentive to stay for a relatively long period of time.
By way of comparison, Priceline's new CEO Darren Huston will receive a salary of $750,000 and $6 million worth of stock in the company, plus a performance award of up to $14 million in Priceline stock next year, according to a SEC filing.
[h/t AllThingsD]
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