Stand-in Apple chief paid $59m

Cupertino: Apple chief operating officer Timothy Cook received total compensation of $59.1m (€44.25m) in fiscal 2010, because of bonuses for running day-to-day operations during chief executive Steve Jobs’s medical leave.

Cook was given a $5m bonus and $52.3m in stock awards for the year ended September 2010, Apple said in a regulatory filing. Cook’s total compensation was up from $1.64m in 2009, while his salary remained at about $800,000.

Cook, 50, took over daily management when Jobs went on a nearly six-month medical leave to have a liver transplant in 2009. Cook and his team were praised by investors and analysts for running the company smoothly during Jobs’s absence.