SiliconBeat

It appears that the job of leading JDS Uniphase is slightly less valuable on a cash basis these days. The new chief executive as of Jan. 1, Thomas Waechter, will be paid $700,000 a year in salary, $100,000 less than the current CEO, Kevin Kennedy, according to a regulatory filing Thursday. Waechter, who joined the company a year ago in October, is currently an executive vice president in charge of JDS’s communications test & measurement group.

Kennedy, who told the company in October he would be resigning, isn’t going far. Like so many executives, he’ll be retained as a consultant for awhile, and he’ll continue making his $800K next year, more than the man he’s presumable consulting, and probably putting in a lot fewer hours in the process. We posted more about Kennedy’s deal earlier this month, including the guaranteed $400,000 bonus he’ll be paid within a week of leaving.

But we digress.

The equity portion of Waechter’s new employment agreement includes 450,000 or what are called “performance stock options,” which are not to be confused with premium priced options — the kind that have an exercise price higher than the stock’s price the day they are granted.

If we understand correctly, Waechter’s options will be priced at the current market price, but will vest in three installments based on the latter to occur of (i) the first, second and third anniversaries of the grant date; and (ii) the appreciation of the price of the Company’s common stock such that it will have traded at a minimum of a 25% premium to the exercise price of the Performance Options for at least 30 consecutive trading days”.

JDS Uniphase shares have lost more than 70 percent of their value this year. If the shares rise 25 percent from where they are now, which would be equal to about $4.80, that would be about half of what the average price of JDS shares were so far this year.

Waechter (pictured) will also get 250,000 time-based options that will vest over the next three years and be valuable if the stock price rises at all in the meantime.

But even if JDS shares fail to rise, Waechter will have 200,000 restricted shares that vest over the next three years. Chances are, they’ll be worth something by then, no matter what.