CEO Pay Watch: Stephen Hemsley, UnitedHealth Group executive chairman
The company's long-term success has also made Hemsley, who retired as CEO in September, a wealthy man.
April 20, 2018 at 11:39PM
Total compensation: $26,975,932 for the year ended Dec. 31, 2017
Salary: $1,206,538
Nonequity incentive pay: $5,745,600
Other compensation: $170,481
Exercised stock options: $0
Value realized on vesting shares: $19,853,313
New stock options: 96,706
Total 2017 shareholder return: 39.8 percent
CEO pay ratio: 298:1
Median employee pay: $58,378
Note: Hemsley retired as CEO on Sept. 1, 2017, and assumed the role of executive chairman. Hemsley took over the CEO role in 2006.
Few CEOs in the country have overseen as much growth as that of the Minnetonka-based health care company under Hemsley's tenure. In 2006 United's total revenue was $70.7 billion, and last year the company recorded revenue of $200.1 billion and earned a record $10.5 billion in net income. The shares of UnitedHealth have had a total return of 360 percent while he has been CEO, compared with the S&P 500's 77 percent.
The company's long-term success has also made Hemsley a wealthy man. Counting just his salaries and annual incentive bonuses during his tenure as CEO, he has made more than $60.5 million. But it's the long-term equity awards that were awarded and then vested or exercised over the years that have earned him hundreds of millions more.
During 2017 he earned the largest cash incentive compensation of his career at UnitedHealth. Hemsley also realized $19.9 million from previously issued restricted stock and performance-based restricted stock awards that vested during the year. He has accumulated 785,000 stock options yet to be exercised.
