Teva executive may be paid salary after leaving company

The leadership shuffling at Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. over the last few years became evident again when the company filed its annual report with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The report from the Israel-based drugmaker, whose Americas headquarters is in North Wales, Montgomery County, included the five most highly compensated executives for the year ending Dec. 31, 2014.

Chief executive officer Erez Vigodman was the first listed on the report, filed Monday evening, but he didn't have the highest total compensation last year, though only in part because he got that title on Feb. 11, 2014.

The leader on the chart for total compensation - including salary, stock awards, and other pay - was Allan Oberman with $7,337,661.

Oberman, who had been running the generics division, no longer works for Teva. As the filing says, Oberman's employment at Teva ended Dec. 31, but the separation essentially occurred in a couple of earlier stages.

Oberman joined Teva in 2000, after running a Canadian food business. After heading Teva's operations in Eastern Europe, he replaced Bill Marth as head of generics in 2012 and moved to the Americas headquarters. According to the SEC filing, Teva helped Oberman pay for his housing with $75,344 in 2014. (The local phone number is disconnected; no one answered at a new number in Canada.)

Bloomberg News reported last March that in October 2013 Oberman told the Teva board that the leadership team supported then-CEO Jeremy Levin, and that the board should curtail efforts at day-to-day management. Levin was soon fired.

Vigodman was - and remains - a board member. After becoming CEO, he chose a new leader of the generics division, Sigurdu Olafsson, who had been at Actavis. (Vigodman declined the cash he would get as a board member and his total compensation was listed as $4,485,859.)

According to the filing, Oberman's 2014 compensation included salary ($850,000), benefits, and prerequisites ($207,490), cash bonus ($1,194,435), equity-based compensation ($546,221), and rent ($75,344). The last chunk - called "Other" on the SEC form - was the biggest: $4,464,171.

A piece of "other" was stock options from 2010 through 2013, some of which were vested. Teva accountants had to put a current value on the options, but the filing says Oberman gets to keep the options and the original schedule for exercising them.

If Oberman signs a release, a waiver of claims, and an agreement not to work for a competitor in 2015, he gets his base salary of $850,000.