Marc Casper, the CEO at Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (NYSE:TMO), saw his base salary climb nearly 13 percent last year and is slated to enjoy an even larger, 17.7 percent rise pay raise during 2010.
Casper, 42, was promoted to the corner office in October 2009 after a 17-month stint as COO and a three-year term as a senior vice president for the Waltham, Mass.-based instruments manufacturer. The new job will pay $930,000 this year, up from Casper’s base salary of $739,000 as COO through the first nine months of 2009, and supplemented with a pro-rated portion of his increased CEO cash compensation over the rest of the year.
Far more lucrative, at least potentially, are the time-based and performance-based stock incentives Casper is eligible to receive. The company has queued up a total of 700,000 options for the new boss to purchase Thermo Fisher stock, exercisable at $46.56 a share. He’s also in line for 600,000 restricted stock units (RSUs) that will vest in blocs of up to 150,000 shares a year starting in February 2012.
The actual number of performance-based options and RSUs Casper can receive will turn largely on how Thermo Fisher stock performs relative to the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. The time-based awards, meanwhile, will accumulate the longer he stays on the job — 120,000 options each year starting in November 2011 and 50,000 restricted stock units vesting yearly beginning in February 2012.
According to figures provided in the Thermo Fisher proxy statement ahead of its May 26 annual shareholders meeting, the company estimates Casper’s stock awards eventually could be worth about $19.6 million. The potential options grants this year have an estimated value of $12.8 million, the company said.
