CEO Mayer to earn $186 mn from sale to Verizon
26 Apr 2017
Yahoo shareholders will vote on 8 June on the proposed sale of the company's internet businesses to Verizon Communications for $4.48 billion.
A yes vote, the widely expected outcome, would bring CEO Marissa Mayer's unsuccessful five-year effort to revive the fortunes of the company to an end.
However Mayer would be well compensated for her failure. Her Yahoo stock, stock options and restricted stock units were worth a total of $186 million, on the basis of yesterday's stock price of $48.15, according to data in the documents sent to shareholders about the Verizon deal.
That compensation would be fully vested at the time of the shareholder vote, and would not include her salary and bonuses over the past five years, or the value of other stock that Mayer had already sold.
All told, her time at Yahoo would have netted her well in excess of $200 million, according to calculations based on company filings.
Mayer gave up additional equity compensation that she would have received in 2017 as a penalty for the failure of her management team, on a 2014 breach of the company's systems.
The failure had resulted in theft of data on 500 million users. Two Russian intelligence officials were among four people indicted by the federal government, in the crime, last year.
According to Yahoo, Mayer and some other directors would leave the board after it closed its deal with Verizon.
Meanwhile, John Roe, head of ISS Analytics, part of the influential proxy adviser Institutional Shareholder Services said in an interview: "She is walking away with a tremendous sum," The Washington Post reported.
"But the sum is tremendous not because of a sweetheart arrangement in the transaction, but because of the value the counterparty is willing to pay for Yahoo."
