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 September and previous months in 2010.

View the Top Equity Awards Made in September

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.

Hurd

The largest equity award in September went to Mark Hurd, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard who was fired from his job there in August, and then defected to arch-rival Oracle Corp. weeks later as president. Oracle gave Hurd 10 million options on Sept. 9 with an exercise price of $24.14, implying a face vale of more than $241 million. HP had filed a lawsuit in September to block Hurd’s move, but both sides settled the suit several days later with the stipulation that Hurd forfeit some of the severance pay he received from HP.

Other companies doling out large stock option grants last month included Colgate-Palmolive, Clorox Corp., J. Crew, and Qualcomm.

While Oracle and HP were battling over Hurd’s future, the other giant of Silicon Valley, Apple, dominated grants of restricted stock awards. Eight of the largest 11 grants of stock awards went to Apple executives, starting with Chief Operating Officer Timothy Cook. He received 125,000 shares on Sept. 22 worth a total of $35.5 million, based on a grant-date exercise price of $283.77.

The seven other Apple executives—CFO Peter Oppenheimer, General Counsel Bruce Sewell, and several senior vice presidents—all received grants that same day of 100,000 shares, worth $28.37 million. The only senior Apple executive who did not receive restricted stock last month was CEO Steve Jobs.

The other companies giving out large stock awards were Cisco Systems, Amtel Corp., and Seacor Holdings.

Trends, Performance

No companies granted options in September 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.

And for the fourth consecutive month, no company awarded equity compensation in Sept. 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 continue to issue performance-based equity awards. On Sept. 8, for example, Urban Outfitters granted restricted stock units to three executives with the following performance-related footnote:

“The PSUs are eligible to vest on April 1, 2015, contingent on the continued employment of the reporting person through such date and the satisfaction of certain performance measures relating to the issuer’s compounded annual growth rate for operating profit for the fiscal years 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015, as well as the average closing price of the issuer’s common stock during fiscal year 2015.”

Another interesting item came from J. Crew, which included a “windfall restriction” on equity awards granted to six executives on Sept. 15. The footnote read:

“The options become exercisable in five equal annual installments beginning on the first anniversary of the grant date. The options are subject to a cap which results in a stock-settled automatic exercise of any then-vested options if the fair-market value (as defined in the J.Crew Group Amended and Restated 2008 Equity Incentive Plan) of the corporation’s common stock reaches or exceeds 400 percent of the exercise price.”

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