Taxes Bite Into CEO’s Apple Stake

Steve Jobs, chief executive of Apple Computer Inc., has used almost half his stake in the company to pay taxes on 10 million restricted shares that vested this month.

According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission last week, Apple withheld 4.57 million shares, worth about $296 million at $64.66 a share, from Jobs’ stake. That still leaves Jobs with about 5.43 million Apple shares worth $351 million.

The Cupertino, Calif.-based company granted Jobs 10 million restricted shares in March 2003.

“When the restricted stock vested, Apple withheld enough shares to cover the income tax, and he’ll receive the remaining shares,” Apple spokeswoman Katie Cotton said Monday.

Jobs has been receiving a token salary of $1 a year since returning as Apple’s CEO in 2000.

But Apple’s revenue and stock market value have climbed since the 2001 introduction of the iPod digital music player.

Apple shares have fallen 17% this year and closed Monday at $59.51, down 45 cents. But the stock is still 80% above its 52-week low of $33.11, hit in May.

Jobs is also chief executive of Pixar Animation Studios, which produced such hit movies as “Toy Story” and “Finding Nemo” and is being acquired by Walt Disney Co. for $7.4 billion.

Jobs, 51, has a personal fortune valued at $4.4 billion, according to Forbes magazine.

In 1975 Jobs co-founded Apple with his friend Steve Wozniak and built it into a $2-billion-a-year company.

Jobs brought in a new team of managers, with whom he eventually clashed. He was fired from Apple in 1985.

Apple fell on hard times, however, and Jobs returned as an advisor in 1996. He became CEO the year before the iPod debuted.