Apotheker pockets $4 million bonus

The newly appointed chief executive (CEO) of HP is set to get millions of dollars in bonuses on top of a hefty salary, but not everyone is happy with his appointment.

Leo Apotheker, the former boss of software firm SAP, will receive $1.2 million (760,000) a year as a salary but will also get $4 million as a signing bonus and $4.6 million for relocation costs, HP has revealed.

He will also be eligible for a performance related bonus in 2011 of between $2.4 million and $6 million, along with hundreds of thousands of shares in his new company.

But his celebrations may not have lasted long after Larry Ellison, CEO of rival company Oracle, made clear his objections to the appointment.

In an email to the Financial Times, Ellison slammed the move due to SAP's involvement in stealing software from his company back in 2005 after it purchased TommorrowNow the company responsible for the software theft.

"SAP has already publicly confessed and accepted financial responsibility for systematically stealing Oracle's intellectual property over a long period of time," he wrote.

"Much of this industrial espionage and intellectual property theft occurred while Leo was CEO of SAP."

However, SAP has always claimed the damage only cost Oracle a matter of tens of millions rather than the $1 billion Ellison and his firm are seeking.

After the sudden exit of previous HP boss, Mark Hurd, Ellison snapped him up as the new co-president of his company.

HP initially fought against the move, with concerns Hurd would reveal company secrets, but the case was dropped and Hurd is now fully integrated into Ellison's management team.