Marissa Mayer To Land $23M Golden Parachute Following Verizon Takeover Of Yahoo
Regulatory documents, which were filed today, shows that Mayer will receive a total of $23 million in compensation when she leaves the company. That figure includes roughly $3 million in cash, nearly $20 million in equity and another $24,000 in benefits. Those figures might at first glance seem a bit generous considering that Yahoo hasn’t exactly blossomed during Mayer’s tenure as the company’s chief (Mayer came aboard as CEO in July 2012).
Microsoft offered to purchase Yahoo for $44.6 billion back in 2008, and was prepared to pay upwards of $50 million before being rebuffed. Verizon confirmed in late February that it reduced its purchase price by $350 million to $4.48 billion following the disclosures of wave after wave of security breaches. That means Verizon will complete its purchase of Yahoo for roughly one-tenth the price that Microsoft was willing to pay nearly a decade ago.
This news of Mayer’s golden parachute comes after it was revealed earlier this month that she would be stripped of her annual bonus as a result of an independent investigation into the data breaches that have occurred at the company over the past few years. However, Mayer had a slightly different account of the bonus retraction, stating, “I am the CEO of the company and since this incident happened during my tenure, I have agreed to forgo my annual bonus and my annual equity grant this year and have expressed my desire that my bonus be redistributed to our company’s hardworking employees, who contributed so much to Yahoo’s success in 2016.”
Verizon expects to complete is acquisition of Yahoo during the second quarter of 2017.
