Tradeweb Paid Top Two Executives $38 Million in 2018 Pre-IPO

(Bloomberg) -- Tradeweb Markets Inc., the Refinitiv unit co-owned by Blackstone Group LP and Thomson Reuters Corp. that’s preparing to go public, awarded its top two executives a combined $38.3 million in 2018.

Chief Executive Officer Lee Olesky received $22.7 million while President Billy Hult was awarded $15.6 million, according to an initial public offering prospectus filed Thursday.

More than half of Olesky’s 2018 compensation -- and about 43 percent of Hult’s pay -- comes from stock option grants related to the IPO, according to the filing.

Half of their options are linked to certain sales and cash flow targets while the remainder vest if they stay on the job. They also got restricted stock tied to performance goals.

As part of the 2018 pay package, Tradeweb’s co-founder Olesky received a performance-related cash bonus of $6.4 million. Hult’s cash bonus was $5.7 million. Both have employment agreements that run through 2020, with automatic one-year extensions.

Tradeweb could be worth more than $5 billion in an IPO, people with knowledge of the matter said, asking not to be identified as the details aren’t public. Based in New York, the company builds and operates over-the-counter marketplaces for fixed-income and derivative products.

Blackstone acquired 55 percent of Refinitiv for $17 billion in January 2018 with co-investors Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and GIC, Singapore’s sovereign-wealth fund.

Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News, competes with Thomson Reuters and Refinitiv in providing news, data and information to the financial industry.

To contact the reporters on this story: Matthew Leising in Los Angeles at mleising@bloomberg.net;Anders Melin in New York at amelin3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael J. Moore at mmoore55@bloomberg.net, Matthew Monks, Amy Thomson

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