On-prem

IBM spin-off's top brass bag six-figure stock awards

Timing, as we noted previously, is everything. Now hard-pressed tech services biz Kyndryl is dishing out shares worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to execs in the middle of a redundancy program – and some staff are not amused.

According to SEC filings made on June 5, chairman and CEO Martin Schroeter was awarded 19,407 units of common stock, valued at $12.25 per share. On the same day, Kyndryl confirmed Group President Elly Keinan and interim CFO Harsh Chugh were given 13,894 shares and 651 shares respectively. 

The transaction date for all three was listed as March 6, 2026, so even though these agreements were approved before the current job cuts, the fact they landed while Kyndryl is seeking volunteers to take redundancy terms has annoyed some staff who are fearful for their future. 

One insider noted Kyndryl's executive generosity was filed with the SEC "while we are handing out redundancy letters, zero pay rises and zero bonuses." 

A spokesperson at Kyndryl told The Register: "These are routine SEC filings that disclose equity vestings from previously granted awards, as well as annual stock grants for our current fiscal year, which are typically done at Kyndryl in the early June timeframe." 

Following stagnant sales and shrinking profits in Kyndryl's year ended March 31, 2026, the former global infrastructure division of IBM – spun off in November 2021 – began a multi-country exercise to cut costs.

A spokesperson confirmed to The Register on May 20 it was undertaking "limited workforce rebalancing in some countries affecting a small percentage of our workforce to address labor costs and streamline our operations."  

Staff in the UK, for example, entered a 45-day consultation period, meaning at least 100 employees are expected to leave. In the first instance, the corporation is seeking volunteers willing to depart with a four-month pay package. If it doesn't hit the requisite number of exits, compulsory redundancies are expected, according to sources.

Kyndryl has not told us how many positions it expects to cut in this round, though it did confirm on an earnings call for fiscal 2026 it is taking a charge of $200 million to pay for severance. Kyndryl employs 73,000 globally.

As The Reg revealed, staff were told their job was at risk of redundancy on May 20, the same day that the employee staff survey was sent out. We suspect this tarnished their view of their working environment and culture. 

Still, no doubt some in the ranks are pleased to note that CEO Schroeter's latest stock award takes his total tally to 2.449 million shares. Likewise, Keinan now owns 1.603 million and Chugh 184,455. 

The average wage paid to a Kyndryl employee in 2025 was $39,464 versus $15.8 million awarded to Schroeter, according to a proxy statement. 

Kyndryl, like Atos and DXC, has struggled to report sustained financial growth since cloud computing took off in a big way. Fewer enterprises own and manage datacenters these days, meaning there are fewer big-ticket infrastructure management contracts up for grabs.

Some staff are skeptical about Kyndryl's efforts to diversify into AI and cloud service integration work for AWS, Microsoft, and Google. ®