Discovery Communications (NSDQ: DISCA) CEO David Zaslav, coming off a year where the cable network outperformed most of its peers, reaped a $34 million payday as a result of a stock appreciation rights plan that kicked in earlier this month, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
According to the SEC filing Jan. 20, Zaslav received appreciation rights for about 1.9 million shares of Discovery stock at prices ranging from $14.34 each and $22.91 each on Jan. 15. That stock was automatically sold the same day at prices ranging from $31.69 each to $34.86 each, reaping the CEO a profit of $33.9 million.
Some of those appreciation rights were awarded back in 2007, according to Discovery. The units automatically pay out annually — Zaslav does not take any action to exercise them — and then they replenish at the stock’s trading price on that date. More on Multichannel.
The full filing below:
