The conclusion of the 18-month merger process between tech giants Broadcom Inc. and VMware Inc. in November last year saw the leading legal professionals at these companies collectively bringing in nearly $42 million in compensation, as revealed by securities filings.
The chief legal and corporate affairs officer at Broadcom, Mark Brazeal, earned a total compensation of almost $15.5 million last year, $14.3 million of which was in stock awards as stated in a proxy statement filed on February 26th. Meanwhile, Amy Fliegelman Olli, who served as the general counsel at VMware since 2016, took home more than $26.3 million last year, inclusive of a total compensation of $5.4 million and $20.9 million in golden parachute pay, the majority of the latter being equity remuneration, according to a proxy filing by Palo Alto, California-based VMware.
Broadcom’s procurement of VMware, a cloud computing company, which was one of the largest-ever deals in the tech sector valued at $61 billion, was finally announced in May last year and officially closed following approval from Chinese regulators. This lengthy acquisition process, fraught with regulatory uncertainties, prevented the two companies from merging their legal entities until recently.
The collective compensation of Brazeal and Olli dwarfs when compared to that of Broadcom’s Chief Executive, Hock Tan, who received a significant total compensation increase to $161.8 million year-over-year.
Post-merger, several senior lawyers from the preceding VMware legal department, including Olli, have left the combined company. Following the merger, Broadcom announced significant staff layoffs, keeping some for a six-month transition phase with contracts to retain essential personnel in the short term.
Concurrently, San Jose, California-based Broadcom intends to divest VMware’s end-user computing unit following the latter’s acquisition. This week, they reported an agreement to sell the software business to KKR & Co. in a $4 billion deal. The fate of several notable lawyers at VMware, such as Brooks Beard, who is leading this proposed salesman, remains unclear.