Google CEO Sundar Pichai Scores $200 Million Stock Award

Pichai, set to be one of the highest-paid executives of a public company, heads Alphabet’s biggest businesses

Google CEO Sundar Pichai speaks during a media event
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Google CEO Sundar Pichai is set to become one of the most well paid executives of a publicly traded company after receiving a stock award from parent company Alphabet worth nearly $200 million.

Pichai received 273,328 Class C shares, according to a filing Friday with the Securities and Exchange commission. Based on the stock’s closing price on Wednesday, the grant’s transaction date, the award would be worth about $198.7 million.

Google declined to comment to TheWrap.

Google restructured itself last year under an umbrella company called Alphabet, with Pichai named CEO of the largest unit, the one housing the companies biggest businesses like search, Android and YouTube. Pichai, a trusted lieutenant to founder and Alphabet CEO Larry Page, was the company’s product czar, handling many of its most meaningful businesses like search, maps and Android.

While Alphabet’s underlying business of search advertising has made it one of the largest companies in the world, Google has widened its operations into far-flung ventures, ranging from grounded services like high-speed fiber-optic Internet to “moonshots” like self-driving cars and Internet-delivering near-space balloons.

Alphabet shares have climbed about 25 percent in the last year, momentarily propelling the company past gadget giant Apple as the world’s most valuable publicly-traded concern.

Pichai’s new windfall is a restricted-stock award, a kind of compensation designed to reward and keep valuable executives with a company. On Monday, Alphabet’s Class C shares traded down 1.9 percent at $670.48, tracking a wide sell-off in the broader market.

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