Apotheker's exit payout dwarfs HP's new CEO

Leo Apotheker, CEO of Hewlett-Packard Co., speaks at a media event in Beijing, June 29, 2011.

(Reuters) - Hewlett Packard Co will pay ousted CEO Leo Apotheker nearly $10 million in severance and bonuses and let him keep 156,000 restricted shares, a hefty payout for an 11-month term that saw HP's share price dive 45 percent.

In contrast, HP will pay new CEO Meg Whitman a base salary of just $1 per year. She, however, has the option to buy 1.9 million of the company's shares and is eligible for a performance bonus of $2.4 million in 2012, the company said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Apotheker -- fired this month after repeatedly slashing sales forecasts and angering investors with a pricey acquisition of Autonomy -- gets a $7.2 million severance payout and also a $2.4 million annual bonus under the company's 2005 "pay-for-results plan".

In addition, he will be reimbursed for relocating to France or Belgium, and compensated for any losses on the sale of his residence in California.

Whitman joins a club of high-profile CEOs who have drawn the dollar-a-year salary, which include Apple's Steve Jobs, Yahoo Inc founder Jerry Yang and Google executives Larry Page, Eric Schmidt and Sergey Brin.

HP's shares closed up 2.5 percent at $23.78 on Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange.

(Reporting by Abhiram Nandakumar in Bangalore, editing by Bernard Orr)

(This story was corrected in the final paragraph to say that are shares up 2.5 percent, not down)