Shareholders of Yahoo will vote on June 8 to decide whether to sell the company’s internet business to Verizon Communication for $4.48 billion. A vote for a yes would end the unsuccessful five-year effort to restore the internet pioneer to greatness.
Marissa Mayer, Yahoo’s chief executive was considered to be the worst CEO in modern tech company history.
She will be well compensated for her failure. Mayer stock options and restricted stock units on Yahoo stock are worth a total of $186 million based on Monday’s stock price of $48.15 ad could change. This was according to data filed on Monday in the documents sent to shareholders about the Verizon deal.
Her compensation does not include her salary and bonuses over the past five years and the value of the other stock which Mayer already sold.
As a penalty for Mayer’s management team’s failure to act on a 2014 breach of the company’s systems that led to the theft of data on 500 million users, Mayer gave up her additional equity compensation that she would have received in 2017.
Four people, including two Russian intelligence officials, were charged last month with the said crime by the federal government.
Mayer’s payout was based on the 208 percent increase in Yahoo’s stock price since she left Google for Yahoo in 2012. Yahoo’s stock price increased because of the continuation of Yahoo’s business code email, news, and search; a long-held investment with China’s leading e-commerce Company, Alibaba and Yahoo Japan, an affiliated company controlled by SoftBank.
Yahoo’s sale to Verizon will leave the two investments along with other assets like the patent portfolio in a new company called Altaba. The management seeks to unlock a $44 billion stake in Alibaba and $9.5 billion stake in Yahoo Japan while minimizing a $15 billion tax bill that Yahoo estimated due on an outright sale.
Altaba will be led by Yahoo director Thomas McInerney, McInerney led the Verizon sale process.
Yahoo invested in Snap that owns 4.6 million shares valued at $98 million. Yahoo also owns Hortonworks, Paperless and SeatGeek stakes.
The data breach in 2014 prompted Yahoo and Verizon to renegotiate their original deal last July and eventually agreed to cut the price by $350 million.
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