Nokia paid Stephen Elop £4m to move from Microsoft

Documents filed by Nokia have revealed that the company paid Stephen Elop around £4m to move from Microsoft to become its new chief executive.

The document outlines that he received €2.92m (£1.98m) on joining Nokia, and is entitled to another $3m (£1.87m) in October 2011 to reimburse him for lost earnings from his previous employer.

Furthermore, the documents reveal that Elop is on an annual salary of €1.05m (£900,000) with an incentive scheme based on performance of up to 150 per cent of this amount.

Since joining Nokia, Elop has already radically altered the direction of the company by announcing a partnership with Microsoft in an effort to better compete with the rising success of the iPhone and Android devices.

Elop and Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer believe that the deal will allow both companies to compete with their core rivals in this space, but the document does note the risks inherent in the move to the Windows Phone platform.

"The Windows Phone platform is a very recent, largely unproven addition to the market focused solely on high-end smartphones with currently very low adoption and consumer awareness relative to the Android and Apple platforms," it reads.

"If we fail to finalise our partnership with Microsoft, or the benefits of that partnership do not materialise as expected, we will have limited our options and more competitive alternatives may not be available to us in a timely manner, or at all."

Elop will no doubt be confident that these fears will prove unfounded, but the recent issues Microsoft has faced over the first updates to its platform will not have eased any nerves among the company's management.