Monster Option Grants Reward Execs with $598M Payout

Monster Beverage Corp.’s two top executives, Rodney Sacks and Hilton Schlosberg, saw gains of $598 million last year from exercising options, a windfall that shows how unpredictable compensating bosses with stock can be.

They received the options a decade ago, when the soft-drink maker had a market value of less than $2 billion and was registered as Hansen Natural Corp. In its 2006 proxy statement, the company said if shares appreciated 10 percent annually, each award could be worth $28.7 million by 2015. Those figures were provided to meet Securities and Exchange Commission rules, the company said at the time, and “do ...