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Jeremy Levin
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/ By David Frank /
This week revealed the 2012 salary for the CEO of Teva Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: TEVA). Teva has been able to keep executive salary packages secret up until now. However, this announcement shed light on discrepancies with salaries between the top executives and company performance.
According to the information, recently uncovered, Teva CEO Jeremy Levin made NIS 14.7 million for 2012. That is roughly $4 million at today’s exchange rate and translates to NIS 1.2 million a month or $330K. The breakdown for his salary is also interesting. He will receive NIS 1.2 million ($330K) in annual bonus and another NIS 1.26 million or $350K in restricted shares and option. He will receives those options and shares over the next few years.
Mr. Levin has already received 100, 000 shares of restricted stock and around 450, 000 options at a strike price of $46.04 a share. That is a level that Teva has not seen since 2011. In order for the stock to reach that price, it would have to appreciate nearly 15.8% from its $39.74 per share value now. Mr. Levin joined Teva in February 2012. So this compensation only covers 11 months.
He has also received some other lucrative incentives. Upon signing up with Teva, Mr. Levin received a $1 million dollar bonus. This was received at the beginning of 2013, so it was interestingly enough, included in his 2012 wages.
Earlier this week, the Israel tax Authority released numbers regarding companies who received tax breaks. In a report from Ynet, Teva topped the list receiving more that NIS12 billion (around $3.34 billion) in tax advantages during the period of 2006-2011.
Teva’s response was simple. It is a public company that advocates transparency. The company has almost doubled its employees in Israel to 7, 100 at different sites and factories. In addition, the company employees 3, 000 contract workers and has contracts with 7, 000 suppliers which has added 40, 000 jobs. However, for a company that claims transparency, why all the secrecy surrounding salaries for the top executives of a publicly traded company?
