The chief executive of Aurora Cannabis Inc. saw his annual compensation jump 38 percent to $6.7 million in the company’s latest fiscal year as its stock fell sharply and he aggressively cut costs.
Financial files for the Edmonton-based cannabis company show that Miguel Martín earned a base salary of about $590,500, about $3.8 million in stock-based options and nearly $1.1 million in option-based awards.
Rounding out his earnings were about $815,000 in non-capital incentive plan compensation and $416,000 in other compensation.
By comparison, he earned more than $4.8 million in compensation in Aurora’s tax year 2022 and about $4.4 million in 2021.
The push for Martin’s compensation came when Aurora’s stock price fell 52 percent during its 2023 fiscal year, which spanned three quarters because the company changed the end of its fiscal year.
The cannabis industry has been hampered by a lack of demand, strict regulations and a strong illicit market for much of Martin’s time as CEO. To cope, Aurora embarked on a transformation plan that has generated at least $400 million in savings over the past three years.
Despite this, the industry has experienced a slump marked by layoffs last year at Calgary-based Aurora Cannabis and SNDL.
In 2022, Aurora Cannabis said it was cutting at least 12 percent of its workforce and closing a facility in Edmonton.
Atlas Global announced in June that it would lay off about 50 workers and close a cannabis facility in the village of Gunn, Alta.
SNDL, formerly Sundial Growers, announced in February that it would cut 85 jobs from its Olds facility.
Michelle Lefler, Aurora’s vice president of communications and public relations, said the company uses a “pay-for-performance approach” and that most of Martin’s compensation is tied to Aurora’s stock price and corporate performance metrics, which were met or exceeded.
“It is important to be clear that long-term incentives given to executive leadership are fully tied to the performance of the company’s stock,” Lefler said in an email.
“Today, the value of these rewards is much lower than the value at which they were originally awarded.”
