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Yahoo! Businesses The Almighty Buck

Marissa Mayer Will Make $186 Million on Yahoo's Sale To Verizon (cnbc.com) 157

Posted by msmash from the ms.-mayer dept.
Vindu Goel, reporting for the NYTimes: Yahoo shareholders will vote June 8 on whether to sell the company's internet businesses to Verizon Communications for $4.48 billion. A yes vote, which is widely expected, would end Marissa Mayer's largely unsuccessful five-year effort to restore the internet pioneer to greatness. But Ms. Mayer, the company's chief executive, will be well compensated for her failure. Her Yahoo stock, stock options and restricted stock units are worth a total of $186 million, based on Monday's stock price of $48.15, according to data filed on Monday in the documents sent to shareholders about the Verizon deal. That compensation, which will be fully vested at the time of the shareholder vote, does not include her salary and bonuses over the past five years, or the value of other stock that Ms. Mayer has already sold. All told, her time at Yahoo will have netted her well over $200 million, according to calculations based on company filings.
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Marissa Mayer Will Make $186 Million on Yahoo's Sale To Verizon More

Marissa Mayer Will Make $186 Million on Yahoo's Sale To Verizon

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  • Fail upwards (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25, 2017 @10:02AM (#54297715)

    Nothing like being a part of the ruling class.

    • Mayer's failure actually WASN'T a failure... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Beau1080p ( 4928265 ) on Tuesday April 25, 2017 @11:18AM (#54298335)
      The implication of this article is that Mayer made out like a bandit while doing a bad job. But the numbers say that she didn't do a bad job. That surprised me, because my perception was the opposite, but the last time this came up, I did the numbers here [google.com].

      Under Mayer's tenure, Yahoo! generated a 21% annual growth rate in market value, beating Apple, Microsoft, IBM and Oracle, as well as the NASDAQ, S&P 500 and Dow Jones. I should point out that those companies also pay dividends, but they're all in the 1-2% range, so the dividend payouts don't change the results.

      Now, you can argue that some other CEO would have done better, or that the main reason for Yahoo!'s success under her tenure was the decision to invest in Alibaba, made by her predecessor, but speculation about what someone else might have done is unproductive, and she decided to stay with that investment. The bottom line is that CEOs are supposed to generate value for shareholders, and market-beating value was generated, from a company that was clearly moribund before she was hired.

      You can also argue about whether any CEO is worth the millions they get, but if you judge against other CEOs she earned her money.
      • Replying to undo an incorrect (-1) moderation. I'm surprised this got modded down by the way, at the very least this is "interesting".

        I do think that a good CEO is worth millions, and it is also good if part of that reward comes in the form of shares or options so that they are personally vested in the fate of the company. What I do object to is execs raking in substantial sums when they are fired, even for doing a shit job. And I don't see why they should sometimes receive staggering sums for success

        • I don't object to the pay, but it should be paid the same as everyone else - in cash and not stock. The "fate of the company" thing seems to be mostly an illusion reading the annual reports. The company management picks the stocks they compare themselves to in order to reap a particular bonus. If they don't seem to be doing well for a long enough period - they pick different companies to compare themselves to that are "more representative". They move yardsticks if that doesn't work. It's all a way of gaming

        • Replying to undo an incorrect (-1) moderation. I'm surprised this got modded down by the way, at the very least this is "interesting".

          Mod down was correct. GP is plagiarized from an earlier comment [slashdot.org] which deserves the +1 instead.

      • what did *SHE DO* exactly that was positive? because as you said, most of that 'growth' was directly due to alibaba.

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by luis_a_espinal ( 1810296 )

          what did *SHE DO* exactly that was positive? because as you said, most of that 'growth' was directly due to alibaba.

          She resisted calls to sell Alibaba, she resisted calls to strip Yahoo down to the bones. Shareholders were screaming to short-sell Yahoo down to a carcass. She did not and allowed the company to generate a very decent annual growth rate.

          Maybe she could have done better. Maybe someone could have done better. Would have blah blah hand waving. In there here and now, she kept Yahoo from crumbling long enough to allow a sale. She retained capital and value.

          What more can you possibly (and reasonably) as for

          • If you look at revenues, they're sideways over the past years. So OK, she didn't turn the company around. But she took a has-been company with little really going for it and... well, kept it from going bankrupt. Given that the market cap is currently $50 billion, I think $186 million is not excessive for keeping a sinking ship afloat. Hell, who could have done it? Sure, Jobs did an amazing job turning around Apple when he came back, but it had a strong niche in OS and hardware design, and Yahoo never really

            • They get criticised too. She gets praised to high heaven in other places just for being a female CEO so it all balances out. I want more female CEOs personally because those who think that someone who has got to such a position will be better just because they're not a white male will learn a valuable life lesson that assholes come in all shapes and sizes.

          • Re:Mayer's failure actually WASN'T a failure... (Score:4, Informative)

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25, 2017 @02:55PM (#54300029)

            She didn't resist calls to sell Alibaba. She sold off a portion, and found out that there were huge tax consequences. She tried selling off the rest of Alibaba, and tried to avoid taxes the second time. The problem was that the IRS was going to treat spinning off Alibaba shares into a separate holding company as tax event, and tax accordingly. So she changes her mind, and decides to sell Yahoo's main business instead, and leave the Alibaba and Yahoo Japan shares in basically what well be a holding company for the shareholders tax-free.

      • Under Mayer's tenure, Yahoo! generated a 21% annual growth rate in market value

        Which is only marginally above the other tech companies with similar annual growth rates. Speaking of growth, you know an easy way to grow value? Chop up things and sell it for cash then report good earnings. That's one of the problems with your figures.

        Yahoo showed great growth in the earlier period marked a lot by divestment and cuts. Yahoo then showed growth in the last two years by not delivering anything other than speculation that they will be bought by someone. The end result is a company that is lit

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by slew ( 2918 )

        Now, you can argue that some other CEO would have done better, or that the main reason for Yahoo!'s success under her tenure was the decision to invest in Alibaba, made by her predecessor, but speculation about what someone else might have done is unproductive, and she decided to stay with that investment.

        I think you may have forgotten the details of this event where she sold 1/2 of their Alibaba shares [yahoo.com] to provide the funding for the turn-around attempt.

        She also tried hard to create a tax-free sell/spinoff the rest of the Alibaba investment to Yahoo investors via an ill fated Aabaco manuever [bloomberg.com], but that didn't happen and what resulted in the end was Yahoo itself was sold off to Verizon leaving the shares Altaba (aka RemainCo which is Yahoo's remaining investments in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan essentially forever

      • I'm sorry but creating value for shareholders by breaking up the company into parts and replacing higher paid employees with lower paid ones doesn't make them a good CEO. It's not that hard to go into a company and create good short term market value increases that harm the company in the long term. It's done every day by most of the CEOs. Need to improve the share price, lay off some people. Mayer was looking for the right exit strategy for her from the moment she started.

        It's been like this for the last

    • A man would have got twice as much!

  • ...to Ruin your company so badly its being fire-saled to Verizon before it tanks completely? Am I understanding this correctly? LoL

    • Re:So you Paid her.... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25, 2017 @10:21AM (#54297873)

      Did she really ruin it, though? She took command of the Titanic about 100 meters from the iceberg. Or possibly after it had already hit. Could anybody have done much better?

      She certainly didn't screw up as badly as Stephen Elop or Carly Fiorina.

      • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

        by meadow ( 1495769 )

        I think it's the idea though. The idea that any person walks away with that much money from a company that's purpose is ostensibly to provide services to people in different ways. Milking it for such a grotesque amount of personal gain, regardless of the outcome, is perverse and should never be rewarded. That's not the model that anyone who cares about society wants to support. On that front alone Mayer is a failure.

        Firewall block for yahoo.com and all related assets. They categorically do not deserve

      • She took command of the Titanic about 100 meters from the iceberg. Or possibly after it had already hit.

        Recent research suggest that the Titanic may have had a coal bunker fire that weakened the outer hull where the iceberg struck.

        http://titanic-model.com/db/db-03/CoalBunkerFire.htm [titanic-model.com]

        As for Yahoo, parts of the business may have been smoldering for years.

      • Re:So you Paid her.... (Score:5, Informative)

        by ausekilis ( 1513635 ) on Tuesday April 25, 2017 @01:42PM (#54299485)

        To be fair, Stephen Elop has a track record of driving a business into the ground so MS can buy it and finish digging the hole. He's more of a hired goon in the embrace->extend->extinguish chain than an actual CEO.

      • Could anybody have done much better?

        I'm sure a lot of people could have done better than kill a company through death by papercuts over a 5 year period to an eventual sell off soo poor that the new owners don't even consider keeping the name.

        I have a better question: Should someone who evidently didn't do a good job walk away with stupid amounts of money? I mean give her a token few million for a tenure as CEO while the company sank, but she sure as heck doesn't deserve benefits for her effort.

    • In other news (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by mi ( 197448 )

      In other news Barack Obama will be paid $400K [zerohedge.com] for one speech. Which is what his annual salary used to be, while in office.

      I wonder, who was more ruinous to the enterprise they were charged with running...

      • In other news Barack Obama will be paid $400K for one speech.

        So Obama is making less than Bill Clinton but more than George W. So what?

        https://www.thoughtco.com/former-presidents-speaking-fees-3368127 [thoughtco.com]

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mi ( 197448 )
          Well, Obama is set to get about $80 total in his first year out of office. And one wonders, why — considering his past statements like this:

          “We’re not trying to push financial reform because we begrudge success that’s fairly earned. I mean, I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.”

          Barack Obama, 2010 [emphasis mine]

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      It must be government regulation because private enterprises are rational economic actors.

  • Excellence (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Ms. Mayer is clearly an excellent strategist and negotiator. It's too bad that Yahoo shareholders didn't benefit from her talents.

  • She's braying (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    all the way to the bank!

    Gnaaahahahahaanninininnhhhhhgnnaangaaaa hhhgggnn !!!

  • Please Retire (Score:5, Funny)

    by Big Hairy Ian ( 1155547 ) on Tuesday April 25, 2017 @10:13AM (#54297801)
    I just hope that with $185M in the bank she decides to retire. Either that or takes over as Chairwoman of Oracle
  • I guess it's time to change the password for my Yahoo! Mail and sbglobal.net (DSL) email addresses. Do I get a Verizon email address?

    • Re:After 20+ years... (Score:5, Funny)

      by bigdady92 ( 635263 ) on Tuesday April 25, 2017 @10:19AM (#54297857) Homepage
      you get an @aol.com address. I bet you can't wait to put that one on your resume....

      • you get an @aol.com address.

        I had an AOL account in 1994 until someone pointed out that I needed a dial-up UNIX account to get more technical on the Internet

        I bet you can't wait to put that one on your resume....

        According to conventional wisdom, I'm dating myself on my resume by using my yahoo.com email address and I need to use my icloud.com email address to appear current with the times. However, since I've done business with numerous recruiters over the last 20+ years with my yahoo.com email, I'm reluctant to change to a more current email address. Once in a blue moon, I get contacted

  • The life of a CEO (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Once you're there, you made it. They pay you millions to delegate work, mega millions to go away, and you can always sit on other company boards with your CEO friends and make even more money.

    When is the CEO bubble going to burst?

  • Did they really run it that bad? I seems to remember that when she took over, the assets now sold for 4.8 billion, had a negative value. So maybe they did something right.

    Remember: They are not selling the "Alibaba" shares.

    Can anyone remember the value of Yahoo, without the Alibaba shares when she took over? I do think that the value she is selling for, is in fact larger then the initial value when she took over, but I could be wrong.
       

  • It's important to know, I have a toddler.

  • The implication of this article is that Mayer made out like a bandit while doing a bad job. But the numbers say that she didn't do a bad job. That surprised me, because my perception was the opposite, but the last time this came up, I did the numbers, here [google.com].

    Under Mayer's tenure, Yahoo! generated a 21% annual growth rate in market value, beating Apple, Microsoft, IBM and Oracle, as well as the NASDAQ, S&P 500 and Dow Jones. I should point out that those companies also pay dividends, but they're all in t

    • Re:Myth: Mayer didn't do well for Yahoo! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Tuesday April 25, 2017 @10:42AM (#54298027) Homepage Journal

      The bottom line is that CEOs are supposed to generate value for shareholders

      Reports say that Meyer ordered underlings to not buy the resources to prevent and then not report the security breaches at Yahoo! That cost shareholders more than $1B in valuation on the Verizon deal.

      That's one heck of a negative RoI. She had the wrong instincts, she did the wrong thing, and her owners paid dearly for it.

      speculation about what someone else might have done is unproductive

      No, all her competitors invest in security and are not punished by the market for doing so. This is comparing her to the field, not some ubermensch ideal.

      • Re:Myth: Mayer didn't do well for Yahoo! (Score:4, Insightful)

        by swillden ( 191260 ) <shawn-ds@willden.org> on Tuesday April 25, 2017 @12:21PM (#54298889) Journal

        The bottom line is that CEOs are supposed to generate value for shareholders

        Reports say that Meyer ordered underlings to not buy the resources to prevent and then not report the security breaches at Yahoo! That cost shareholders more than $1B in valuation on the Verizon deal.

        Yep, had she done better there, perhaps Yahoo would be worth $48B instead of $47B. Considering it was worth $19B when she started, shareholders might be inclined to give her that one.

        • Considering it was worth $19B when she started, shareholders might be inclined to give her that one.

          Considering that that increase in value was entirely due to the increase in the value of Yahoo's Alibaba shares, which took zero skill and effort on Mayer's part, shareholders would be fools to "give her that one".

    • and she decided to stay with that investment.

      Which was made for her because of the tax implications of selling.

      A monkey in her office would have done as well.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Wasn't ALL of Yahoo!'s growth from their Alibaba stake? None of the Yahoo! core services or acquisitions did jack squat during her tenure.

      The best thing she did was find a buyer, which means she is not the stupidest person around. That award goes to the people at Verizon who agreed to buy Yahoo!.

    • Please mod parent up as informative.

    • Under Mayer's tenure Yahoo had a negative market value with respect to its holdings. Yahoo owned stock in companies which did good, but Yahoo itself was valued at negative billions of dollars.

    • 21% growth rate? Per annum? Is it really a big deal? When the first baby is born the family is growing at a dizzying rate of 50% per annum. Adding up all the families growing at this rate, I am sure the world population is going to exceed three quadrillion by the end of next quarter.

    • But the numbers say that she didn't do a bad job.

      Yahoo ceases to be and will no longer generate any revenue for any share holder. That should put your short term $ in perspective. What shareholder value has she generated for the next 5 years? You know that thing CEOs are supposed to do? Set up a business to provide value in the future. How good are her numbers there?

  • She's like the Construction Worker who operates the big wrecking ball... being paid to destroy buildings.

    Only in her case, she wasn't really supposed to demolish the company, and she got paid more than if the construction worker was hired to demolish an entire small town.

  • On the positive side for shareholders, she sold off the company for an increased share value. However, the cost was the destruction of the company.

    This seems to me to be missing the point. However, if the shareholders are happy for this short term win, then who am I to argue.

  • I could have f**ked Yahoo into the ground, and I'd have gladly have done it for half of that. Where's the shareholder value in paying her double my rate?!?

  • Corporate raiding. It's...profitable?

  • I'll take 1/1000th of that and suck at the job. It sure is good to know the right people in order to get gigs like hers.

  • not for failure, for career-destroying mission (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Green Salad ( 705185 ) on Tuesday April 25, 2017 @10:56AM (#54298165) Homepage

    Point of Order: It's *not* a reward for failure. It's a consolation prize for not winning the bigger reward and accepting very high probability of a publicly-destroyed career, lots of humiliation and public hate. The payment is to entice someone that already has rising pay and career prospects to knowingly take on "mission impossible" like beating Google with the full knowledge it will likely destroy their career and reputation.

    The many posts I've seen here validate that the risk to reputation was indeed, a real one.

    Marissa was a disaster, but frankly, so was the project she took on. I'm sure that many people besides me thought they could have done better against Google, but those are untested, ego-inflating opinions of little value.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Point of Order: It's *not* a reward for failure. It's a consolation prize for not winning the bigger reward and accepting very high probability of a publicly-destroyed career, lots of humiliation and public hate. The payment is to entice someone that already has rising pay and career prospects to knowingly take on "mission impossible" like beating Google with the full knowledge it will likely destroy their career and reputation.

      The many posts I've seen here validate that the risk to reputation was indeed, a real one.

      Marissa was a disaster, but frankly, so was the project she took on. I'm sure that many people besides me thought they could have done better against Google, but those are untested, ego-inflating opinions of little value.

      Ha ha ha! Since when do any of these failed CEOs have a "destroyed career" ????
      They always seem to be able to find a new job. That's how the ruling class works

    • Re:not for failure, for career-destroying mission (Score:5, Insightful)

      by netsavior ( 627338 ) on Tuesday April 25, 2017 @11:41AM (#54298519)
      If anybody with 186 million dollars gives a fuck about a "destroyed career" they are either addicted to smashing fabrige eggs; or otherwise mentally ill.

    • What ruined career? There's plenty of utterly disastrous CEOs that went on to destroy additional companies.

      Sure, she won't land a new CEO job in the next few years, but she'll easily be hireable soon enough.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sootman ( 158191 )

      > It's a consolation prize for not winning the bigger reward and accepting very
      > high probability of a publicly-destroyed career, lots of humiliation and public hate.

      Oh boo fucking hoo. LOTS of people have had their careers "destroyed" for one reason or another but we don't give them all $200 million. A typical person might work (very rough numbers) 40 years at an average of $50k/year -- that's TWO million dollars in THEIR WHOLE LIFE. And I'm supposed to feel somehow bad for this 42-year-old who has O

  • Perhaps its time to reign in CEO pay (Score:4, Insightful)

    by oh_my_080980980 ( 773867 ) on Tuesday April 25, 2017 @11:26AM (#54298397)
    Real corporate governance would start with CEO compensation. Since they are paid such astronomical sums it would make sense to review and revise compensation. Unfortunately, the board of directors are typically made up of other CEOs and cronies that real reform will not happen.

    • It's not that the directors are other CEOs, it's that they are people who derive most of their income from very diverse portfolios. They are interested in much more risk from each investment than the individual wage earner can tolerate. They have to pay CEOs that much to get the CEOs to take risks that may in turn put the CEOs out of work.

  • Peter [wikipedia.org] suggests that "In time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties"and that "work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence."

    • Peter [wikipedia.org] suggests that "In time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties"and that "work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence."

      The solution is, of course, to have a planned economy which works on the principle of "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" without depending on self-promotion in search of money or power.

      So of course it's not going to happen, because Communism.

  • If you have a hacked system.

  • Shame they didn't hire me. I could have drained all the IP and talent from that place for a fraction of the cost.

  • Pretending she could easily have done better does not prove anything.

    She was hired with fanfare, as if she would walk on water and send Yahoo stock back into the stratosphere. That is the song and dance for 99% of new CEOs put in such positions. Was she supposed to run with a different script?

    I do not think it is fair to say she did a bad job, unless you really believe it would be easy for the Board to hire someone else who would have done substantially better. Most CEOs in similar situations do no bette

  • It's all about share-holder value. Even hers. She found a buyer and saved coin. So she made ~$200 mil. Good for her.

    To me Yahoo! always seemed doomed. The Microsoft bid ~8 years ago shed Yahoo in a bad light - a company struggling to stay on top against Google and Bing. At the time I wondered why MS would want Yahoo - didn't seem like a good fit. Yahoo was buying search results and not making them (or being paid to send requests to MS) - Search as a Service? okay - the engine isn't the special sauce

  • You're Doing it Wrong (Score:3)

    by dcw3 ( 649211 ) on Tuesday April 25, 2017 @01:26PM (#54299357) Journal

    "But Ms. Mayer, the company's chief executive, will be well compensated for her failure"

    A quick look at the stock price of Yahoo over the last five years shows that the value of the company has just about tripled. If you're only looking at the things us tech folks hate (and I agree that there's plenty to dislike), then you're failing at properly evaluating her as a CEO.

  • My guess is that something like 35% to 40%, if not more, is the sum of Federal and State income taxes. This will depend on how she disposes of this largess as long term or short term income. Many would like to reduce Federal taxes on businesses to something like 12% to 15%, so one way to get some of that back is to heavily tax the income of those paid these huge sums.

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday April 25, 2017 @03:50PM (#54300409)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Destroying companies for ridiculous compensation sure does work up an appetite. She's a poster child for everything wrong with American business today. https://qz.com/741056/the-stun... [qz.com]

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