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L.A. billionaire Soon-Shiong gets $148-million payday even as his firm’s stock tanks

Patrick Soon-Shiong, an L.A. billionaire who serves as NantKwest's chairman, last year received stock worth $15 million, as well as stock-option awards that the company valued at $132.2 million.
(Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images)
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Even though its shares have tanked, the Southern California biotech firm NantKwest Inc. gave its top executive, Patrick Soon-Shiong, a pay package last year worth almost $148 million, according to a stock filing Wednesday.

Soon-Shiong sold shares in NantKwest, a San Diego cancer research firm, to the public in July. Its stock was priced initially at $25 a share, and surged over the next couple of days. But the shares have sunk since then and are now down 65% since the IPO, closing Wednesday at $8.73.

The company is now defending itself against a class-action lawsuit brought by shareholders who say they were misled when executives said in March they would have to restate the company’s financial statements for the second and third quarters.

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Those accounting errors related, in part, to Soon-Shiong’s compensation package, the company said then.

According to Wednesday’s filing, Soon-Shiong, a Los Angeles billionaire who serves as the company’s chairman, received stock worth $15 million, as well as stock-option awards that the company valued at $132.2 million.

He also received $1 in salary for 2015 and a $386,301 bonus.

The package would make him one of the highest paid CEOs last year.

Soon-Shiong and his investment firm own 57% of NantKwest’s shares, according to the company’s filing.

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Barry Simon, NantKwest’s president and chief operating officer, received a salary and stock package valued at more than $21 million, according to the filing.

Jen Hodson, a spokeswoman for the company, said Soon-Shiong was traveling out of the country for business and could not be reached for comment.

Soon-Shiong, 63, became a billionaire oncologist after selling two other drug companies: APP Pharmaceuticals Inc. in 2008 and Abraxis BioScience Inc. in 2010.

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NantKwest is focusing on developing cancer therapies that use the human immune system to fight the disease. The firm has operations in Culver City.

melody.petersen@latimes.com

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