Teva reveals CEO pay secret: Levin collected $4.1M in 2012

Teva CEO Jeremy Levin

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries ($TEVA) has finally disclosed CEO Jeremy Levin's compensation package. Not publicly, per se, but as part of a filing in an ongoing class-action lawsuit over the company's executive pay.

The number for 2012: 14.7 million shekels, or about $4.1 million, Globes reports.

According to those court documents, Levin's base salary was 5.4 million shekels, with a bonus of 4.3 million shekels, or $1.51 million and $1.2 million, respectively. His stock awards--450,000 options at $46 per share and 100,000 vested shares--also amounted to 4.3 million shekels.

That's not much in the realm of CEO pay, even for generics makers. Mylan ($MYL) CEO Heather Bresch had a 2012 compensation package of about $9.9 million last year. But Levin just took over as CEO on May 9, 2012, so the $4.1 million is a partial-year figure. At the same rate for the full year, he'd have collected a bit over $6 million.

Levin left Bristol-Myers Squibb ($BMY), where he led the company's string-of-pearls acquisition strategy, last January to take the Teva CEO post. He knew he was taking on a challenge; the company faced the loss of patent protection on its cash-cow branded drug Copaxone, and it needed a new strategy for growing sales. Plus, investors had been sour on Teva shares for some time. In fact, the company made FiercePharma's list of biggest-losing stocks for 2012.

Since then, Levin has embarked on a $2 billion cost-cutting drive, cutting jobs and shuttering manufacturing facilities around the world. Investors have been less than impressed with his plans to boost the top line, however. Emerging markets, new drug-formulation projects, over-the-counter meds--sound ideas, perhaps, but Teva's shares are still lagging.

Meanwhile, the shareholder class action was making its way through the courts. Teva had been taking advantage of a legal loophole to report pay for its top executives as a group, rather than individually, so shareholders sued. Last month, the company settled, agreeing to begin publicizing executive compensation with its 2013 annual report. So, we won't know Levin's actual full-year pay until next year, when the 2013 numbers are revealed.

- see the news from Globes

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