Canadian executive gets $200 million bonus

Tobi Lütke, Shopify's CEO and founder, received a bonus equal to some C$200 million in restricted stock and stock options. The Globe and Mail Monday.

According to the newspaper, Mr. Ludtke received 2.6 million call options worth US$115 million (C$155 million) and 470,000 restricted shares worth US$37 million (about US$50 million in $CAN) in February. This would be one of the largest bonuses ever received by a Canadian business executive.

The leader of the e-commerce solutions platform already owns about 8 billion shares of Shopify.

The bonus surprised Christopher Chen, managing director of the consulting firm Compensation Governance Partners. “Why so much, why now questions arise. Why, when the share price has fallen so much,” he opined in an interview globe.

Mr. According to Chen, it is Mr. The bonus is 7.5 times larger than what Ludke received in the past two years.

After the shock of the pandemic in 2020, Shopify took advantage of the economic recovery to quickly increase the value of its stock, which exceeded $ 200 in 2021, before falling sharply below $ 40 in 2022, when the company laid off 10% of its workforce.

Shopify stock traded below $105 on Monday.