GoPro's Woodman Got $287 Million for 2014. Now He's a $1 CEO

Written by
Anders Melin
Written by

Anders Melin

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(Bloomberg) -- GoPro Inc. Chief Executive Officer Nick Woodman became the best-compensated U.S. executive for 2014, when his company went public. Now he'll be paid a lot less.

The action-camera maker slashed Woodman's cash compensation for this year to $1, according to a regulatory filing Monday, when San Mateo, California-based GoPro trimmed its fourth-quarter revenue forecast and announced it will cut more than 20 percent of its workforce.

GoPro and Woodman, who has a controlling interest in the firm, agreed to the new pay package on Jan. 4, according to the filing.

Woodman, 42, rocketed to the top of the Bloomberg Pay Index, a ranking of the highest-paid U.S. executives, as GoPro shares soared after its initial public offering, boosting the value of his 2014 equity grant. His annual compensation since then included an $800,000 salary and $1.2 million target bonus.

Woodman's 2014 pay totaled $287.2 million, according to the Bloomberg index, which values equity awards as of each company's fiscal year-end. He didn't get a bonus for 2015 and received a $300,000 payout in 2016. GoPro has yet to report executive-compensation figures for 2017.

GoPro has faced stiff competition from bigger and better funded tech rivals such as Samsung Electronics Co. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google, which have begun selling similar products. The latest job cuts will reduce GoPro's workforce to less than 1,000, down from about 1,500 at the end of 2016.

Shares of GoPro fell 6.9 percent to $7 at 1:41 p.m. in New York and earlier tumbled as low as $5.04, the most since the IPO. The stock pared declines after CNBC reported that the firm has hired JPMorgan Chase & Co. to explore a potential sale.

--With assistance from Jing Cao and Tom Metcalf

To contact the reporter on this story: Anders Melin in New York at amelin3@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alicia Ritcey at aritcey@bloomberg.net, Peter Eichenbaum, Steven Crabill