CEO PayWatch: Kummeth of Bio-Techne earns $40.5M as firm's diagnostic tools aided in pandemic fight

Charles Kummeth, president and CEO of Bio-Techne Corp. realized $40.5 million in total compensation for the fiscal year ended June 30.

September 15, 2021 at 5:35PM
Bio-Techne president and CEO Charles Kummeth sat for a portrait in 2917. (Anthony Souffle, Star Tribune/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Charles Kummeth

Bio-Techne Corp.

President and CEO

  • Total compensation: $40,549,363 for the year-ended June 30
  • Salary: $1,116,000
  • Non-equity incentive pay: $3,537,214
  • Other compensation: $36,879
  • Options exercised: $26,944,351
  • Shares vesting: $8,914,919
  • CEO pay ratio: 214 to 1
  • Median employee pay: $72,758
  • Total fiscal 2021 total return: 71.2%

Note: Kummeth has been president and chief executive of the Minneapolis-based life sciences company since 2013. The bulk of his compensation from the last fiscal year was from long-term equity awards that were issued in previous years.

He exercised 92,006 options in the last fiscal year worth $26.9 million, and $20.8 million worth of options in the previous year, when his overall compensation was $31.3 million.

Under Kummeth, the company has completed more than a dozen acquisitions and greatly increased the number of sites it has in the United States, Europe and Asia while revenue and employee numbers have nearly tripled. Bio-Techne has gone from approximately 800 employees in fiscal 2013 to more than 2,600 in the last year.

The company makes biological reagents used in life sciences research and diagnostic work and products and used in genomics research and development. It also quickly developed COVID-19 research and diagnostics products. In its latest fiscal year, the company's revenue rose 26% to $931 million and it earned $140.4 million.

That performance meant Kummeth and other executives earned the maximum annual bonus for the year. In addition to the usual grant of new long-term equity awards, the board made a supplemental award of stock options to recognize the team's work in managing through the pandemic.

The supplemental options have a time-base component and half of them are performance-based. The options vest "if the company achieves at least $200 million of sales of COVID-19 related products over the three years ending with FY 2023."

The grant date value of Kummeth's supplemental options were $2 million. The final value will depend on the company's performance and share price.

Bio-Techne's financial performance over the last two years also led it to extend its annual cash bonus plan to more employees, including those not on a commission plan.

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about the writer

Patrick Kennedy

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Business reporter Patrick Kennedy covers executive compensation and public companies. He has reported on the Minnesota business community for more than 25 years.

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