Blackstone’s Tosi earns $18m in final year as CFO

Laurence Tosi, former chief financial officer (CFO) at The Blackstone Group, raked in a total of $17.7 million in compensation in 2015, according to the firm’s earnings 2015 report filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission last week.

Tosi resigned from Blackstone on August 7 to become global finance chief at home rental service Airbnb.

Even though Tosi was ineligible for a bonus in 2015 because he resigned prior to when bonuses were determined and paid out, the amount still dwarfed his 2014 compensation package, which totaled $14.9 million, including a $6.6 million bonus.

His 2015 total compensation package included $210,898 of his annual $350,000 base salary, $11.7 million in stock awards and $5.79 million in other compensation, which includes carried interest and payments in connection with participation in certain profit sharing initiatives with respect to Blackstone’s firm investments.

Under the terms of his withdrawal agreement with Blackstone, Tosi received a $500,000 lump-sum cash payment, and the unvested portion of his carried interest in all Blackstone Innovations, Blackstone Innovations (Cayman) III LP investments and Ipreo Holdings investments was vested.

Tosi forfeited 576,837 unvested shares of Blackstone and/or Blackstone Holdings with a value of $21.8 million as of August 7.

Nonetheless, Blackstone agreed to provide Tosi with quarterly payments from August 7 through February 1, 2016 for 125,448 Blackstone Holdings Partnership Units and modified his award of 344,154 unvested deferred restricted Blackstone Holdings Partnership Units granted on January 26, 2011, which was scheduled to cliff vest in full on January 1, 2016.

Tosi’s successor, Michael Chae, received $11.97 million for the year, including $350,000 in base salary, a $4.65 million bonus and $6.97 million in other compensation.

As a top global alternative asset manager with $336.4 billion in assets under management, Blackstone doles out some of the largest pay packages in the industry. The average private equity CFO earned $401,368 in total cash compensation in 2015, according to research from J Thelander and Pitchbook.