Every month, Compliance Week publishes a list of the largest stock option grants and restricted stock awards during the previous period. The data and analysis are provided by compensation research firm Equilar.

THE DATA

Please note that all values are rough “face value” numbers that are calculated by data provider Equilar by multiplying the number of shares in the grant by the market price per share on the grant date.

Latest Data

The spreadsheet below lists the largest awards for May and previous months in 2010.

View the Top Equity Awards Made in June

Prior Years’ Data

View Equity Awards From Each Month in 2009

View Equity Awards From Each Month in 2008

View Equity Awards From Each Month in 2007

View Equity Awards From Each Month in 2006

View Equity Awards From Each Month in 2005

View Equity Awards From Each Month in 2004

Source: Equilar Inc.

The largest two stock option awards in June went to top executives at Viacom, although General Electric crowded the rest of the field with five of the next nine largest awards last month. At Viacom, CFO Thomas Dooley received a grant of 2.09 million options on June 3 with a strike price of $34.16, implying a face value of $70.6 million. In second place was his boss, Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman; he received a grant of nearly 611,000 options on June 9 with a strike price of $32.55, implying a face value of $19.9 million.

GE hogged the rest of last month’s rankings; four vice-chairman and one senior vice president all received grants on June 11 (1 million each for the vice-chairs, 750,000 for the senior vice president) with strike prices of $15.68, implying face values of $11.7 million to $15.68 million. Other companies doling out large option grants last month included FedEx, General Mills, NetApp and Nucor.

The CEO of Monster Worldwide, Salvatore Iannuzzi, received the largest stock award in June. He received 500,000 shares on June 18 worth $6.77 million, based on a grant-date share price of $13.54. The company’s CIO, Darko Dejanovic, also received an award on June 18 of 200,000 shares, worth a total of $2.71 million. Other companies handing out large stock awards in June were Comcast, BMC Software, General Mills, and Mendax Inc.

Trends, Performance

No companies granted options in June with premium pricing, continuing a chaotic pattern since the financial crisis of 2008. Before the crisis, such grants were routine, since the higher exercise price prodded executives to push share prices higher. They have been much more sporadic, however, since the financial crisis threw Wall Street into turmoil 18 months ago.

Likewise, no company awarded equity compensation last month with a shorter vesting period than it had used in the previous year. Historically, companies had used 10-year vesting periods as the industry norm. Since companies began expensing stock options several years ago, however, terms have been shortening to lessen the accounting effect of that expensing.

Equilar noted that companies did still continue to issue performance-based equity awards. On June 1, for example, Arctic Cat granted stock appreciation rights to five executives with the following performance-related footnote:

“The right may be exercised after the company’s common stock trades at a market price of $2 more than the exercise price of the SSARs for 30 of the preceding 40 trading days; provided the right may not be exercised prior to March 31, 2011.”

Also on June 1, CoreLogic granted restricted stock units to six executives with the following performance-related footnote:

“Represents a performance-based restricted stock unit award which vests only upon the issuer’s achievement of certain financial performance objectives. The relevant performance period will commence on January 1, 2011, and end on December 31, 2015. If during any calendar year of the performance period, the issuer achieves one or more of the financial performance objectives that have not previously been achieved, a specified number of shares underlying the PBRSUs will vest and become payable on Dec. 31 of that year.”

And on June 17, Pep Boys granted restricted stock to seven executives with the following performance-related footnote:

“Each TSR performance-based award will vest if the issuer’s total shareholder return over the three-year period that includes the issuer’s fiscal years 2010, 2011 and 2012 is between the 40th and 90th percentile of its customized executive compensation peer group into between one-half and one and three-quarters shares of common stock, respectively. Vested shares will be delivered on or about March 30, 2013.”

A downloadable spreadsheet of the top 10 equity awards in June can be found in the box above, right. Also available are data from 2004-2009.