Still more jobs are in jeopardy, most notably that of Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer. The payout was revealed in a regulatory filing that was disclosed on Friday.
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Marissa Mayer may be the captain of Silicon Valley’s version of the Titanic, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to drown with her angry shareholders and discarded Yahoo verticals. The documents do not explain the rationale for severance deals covering Mayer and other Yahoo executives, although such agreements are common at many publicly held companies.
The filing shows Mayer would receive $3 million in cash, $15,000 in outplacement benefits, $26,324 in health benefits, and almost $52 million in stocks and options. Yahoo also resolved dispute with Starboard last week when it announced four representatives from the activist investor to join board, including one on the independent strategic review committee that is handling the potential sale. While the online giant has no deadline to decide on a sale, industry analysts think the company will sell between $4 billion to $10 billion within the next two months. RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahaney believes the Verizon Communications will be the likely victor of the bidding competition. When Verizon Communications bought AOL previous year for $4.4 billion, Armstrong was up for a severance of less than $13 million, if he was sacked after the new owner took control.
Many on Wall Street believe Verizon Communications will most likely take over the failing internet company.
Mayer’s severance package wouldn’t be the biggest ever, however.
CEO Marissa Mayer has always been in dispute with the activist investor Starboard, which demands to restructure or sell the company core assets and separate it from the stake in Alibaba. Ms. Mayer’s inability to boost the company’s ad sales at a period when digitally advertising is the in thing is baffling to the investors.
The internet media company’s fortunes have changed drastically in the past decade, with sales falling from $7.2bn in 2008 to $4.6bn a year ago.
The company this year expects its revenue after ad commissions to decline another 15 percent to a projected $3.5 billion.
Mayer’s realized pay included stock awards and options based on Yahoo’s April 1 share price of $36.48. Much of the growth was not due to executive decisions, but more to do with the increasing value of e-commerce company Alibaba Group, which is partly owned by Yahoo.
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The investment in Alibaba was made long before Mayer’s hiring, although she has been unsuccessfully trying to find a legal way to avoid paying taxes when the stake is sold.
