Spotlight on A123's executive comp

With Watertown, Mass.-based A123Systems’ IPO bearing the weight of the watchful eyes of the cleantech world today, could this be the start of the boom that boosts the comp for executives in the energy storage space, as it did in the solar sector in 2008? (see Solar boom kicks salaries higher).

Well, it’s too soon to say. But one thing it does do is put the once very private company, which manufactures high-power lithium ion batteries that use its patented nanophosphate technology, into the public spotlight, including how much its executives stand to benefit from the transaction (see A123Systems up and climbing after Nasdaq debut).

According to the company’s S-1 filing, CEO David Vieau has a base salary of $300,000 for 2009, while other top management each have base salaries of $210,000, including: CFO Michael Rubino, Vice President and General Manager of the Energy Solutions Group Robert Johnson, VP of Global Sales Evan Sanders, and Bart Riley, the company’s founder, CTO, and VP of research and development.

Vieau has more than 200,000 exercisable shares at a strike price of $0.21 per share. So given that the shares are trading at a high of $19 so far today, that's a profit of $18.79 per share, or $3.8 million.

He presided over the Nasdaq Stock Market's opening bell today to celebrate the IPO.

See Vieau ringing in the occasion (photo) »

Vieau—who joined the company in March of 2002 just three months after its initial financing—has grown A123 into a 1,700-employee enterprise that’s raised more than $300 million in private financing, not to mention government funding.

Rubino and Riley also have more than 200,000 in exercisable shares, while Sanders has more than 65,000.

The executives would be able to sell after the expiration of lock-up agreements.